Electrically activated safety brake line locks for great holding power at all four wheels on the trail from John McDonald of Pork Barrel Engineering. This kit works with disc or drum brakes and any year Samurai.

Mechanical Installation

Easy. Pork Barrel Engineering provides a page of clear instructions and a second of photos, as well as marking the proper connection orientation on each of the solenoid-operated valves. The hardest part of the job will be bleeding your brakes. It's going to take more work to explain it here than it will to do it.

First you'll have to separate the parts. Most of the parts are shipped connected together as they will be during installation. John shipped mine with the two solenoid valves connected together, as well as with the wiring all hooked up. This is a good time to take note of what goes where. Here's a picture of the master cylinder for 'orientation'. You'll note that in my set-up, I have a proportioning valve to consider as well. More about that below.

Once you've done that, locate the place on your driver's side fender to mount the valves as the brake lines are set up for that mounting location. The "starting point" is the existing hole (usually with a pan-head Philips screw already in it) in the fender You can click the picture at right for a larger, annotated view.

Mount the valves using the existing holes and the new hardware supplied, as shown at left. The existing holes should be the starting/locating point for mounting the two solenoid valves. Use one of the holes to attach the ground wires for the valves as you can see in the photo on the left.

Before you mark and drill the holes for the outer mounting tabs, you'll need to get your brake lines hooked up. To get started, take a look at the instructions and the new lines to determine what's going where. The picture at left shows things installed the way John designed them. For installation purposes, we're going to refer to the solenoid valves as "front" and "rear" based on their location in the engine compartment, not based on which brake circuit they serve. We'll apply the same convention here to the master cylinder ports, calling them "front" and "rear" as well.

You're going to connect the rear port on the master cylinder to the front solenoid valve, and connect the front port on the master cylinder to the rear solenoid valve. Grab the pair of new lines that will attach the master cylinder to the solenoid valves, then mark ('F' and 'R' should work nicely) and disconnect the old lines from the master cylinder. Attach the new lines immediately to minimize loss of brake fluid. The picture at right shows the new lines loosely attached at the master cylinder and swung up out of the way and so they won't drip fluid. The existing lines have been just pushed out of the way.

The next thing to do is connect to free ends of the new lines to the solenoid valves. Brake fluid will leak through the normally open valves. Keep an eye on your fluid level, or else be prepared to bleed the master cylinder as well as the brake lines, when you're done. The picture on the right shows the lines the way they were designed to be connected.

Note

If you have the Spidertrax rear disc brake conversion (as I do), or a similar arrangement that also installed a proportioning valve at the master cylinder, you can still use this kit. For the Spidertrax kit, you'll have to connect the lines a bit differently:

At this point in my installation, I had one of those momentary "Duh!" attacks. At first I couldn't see how I was gonna keep the proportioning valve properly installed. After a couple of minutes thought, however, it was suddenly clear. Then with a, "Jeez, that was simple, you idjit," I went on hooking up lines.

Leave the line coming from the master cylinder to the input side of the Spidertrax kit's proportioning valve in place. Connect the new line from Pork Barrel Engineering's kit that would normally have been installed between the master cylinder's front port and the rear-most solenoid valve on the solenoid end only. Rotate the master cylinder end of the rear solenoid valve about 45 degrees towards the rear of the truck.

Disconnect the union fitting connecting the line from the output side of the proportioning valve to the existing brake line, leaving the union fitting attached to the line coming from the proportioning valve output. Now gently--but firmly--bend the new line coming from the rear-most solenoid valve until it lines up with the union fitting still attached to the output line from the proportioning valve. Connect the union fitting to the new line, and tighten everything up.

The remainder of the installation is the same whether or not you have the Spidertrax kit installed.

Add the other set of new lines to the other side of the solenoid valves. Use the provided union fittings to connect them to the existing brake lines. (The ones you originally disconnected from the master cylinder.) In the left image, you'll see the 'as designed' connections. At right is the "as installed with a proportioning valve" image. Be sure not to mix up which line connects with which location on the master cylinder. Front solenoid connects to rear line and vice versa. It's very important that you have the 'front' connection on the master cylinder connected with the original 'front' line and the 'rear' connection with the 'rear' line, in order to maintain safe braking. What you're doing is inserting the solenoid valves and the new lines 'in line' with the existing brake line circuits.

Tighten up all the lines, then mark and drill the holes for the other mounting tabs on the solenoid valves and anchor them down. At left is John's original installation, 'as designed.' On the right you can see the installation as I performed it to accommodate the proportioning valve.

Now, bleed the brakes!

All done? Bleed the brakes!!

Samurais are cranky about air in the lines after having been opened up at the master cylinder end. You'll likely have to bleed the brakes at least twice. It seems you can never get all the air out of the lines the first time--at least I never can. You should have no change in "pedal feel" from what you're used to once the brakes have been bled properly.

Tip

Fill everything up, do the preliminary bleed, and then let the whole thing sit overnight. Then bleed again. I found that I had to run enough new fluid through to have completely refilled the lines from front to rear to get all the air out. Good excuse to change to synthetic brake fluid, as you're probably going to have flushed the whole system out, anyway, by the time you're done.

Electrical Installation

John McDonald told me he designed the system with the idea of "Safety First!" To that end the line lock solenoid actuating switch is a heavy duty toggle switch with a safety cover. The idea here is to prevent accidental engagement of the brakes on the street or highway while the vehicle is in motion. The cover must be manually flipped out of the way before the toggle can be thrown to the "on" position.

The switch was intended to be installed in the large square depression in the lower part of the dash to the left of the steering wheel as shown at left. Installation there is easy. Cut out the existing 'plug' with an X-Acto knife. Remove the top nut and switch cover from the switch, insert the switch from behind the dash, replace the switch cover and tighten the top nut. Connect the wire end attached to the fuse holder to a line that's hot when the ignition is switched on.

In my case, the intended mounting location wasn't an option, as I had previously mounted the gauge for my Rancho shocks there. Instead, I mounted my switch where the 'chicken bar' used to attach to the dash as you can see in the shot at left. This gave me an easily-reached alternative mounting point that I knew had nothing in the way behind it. Also, the hole was nearly the right size, already. :-) I enlarged the hole and mounted the switch horizontally. It's in easy reach but out of the way while driving.

Thread your wiring from the solenoids through the firewall wherever you can (there's ample length provided), and connect it up to the switch. The wiring can be easily separated at the installed 'bullet' fitting to make running it in easier.

Test your installation in a safe place.

Impressions

Operation is smooth and easy. Step on and hold the brakes, flip up the safety cover and switch and you have positive lock on all four wheels. There's a barely audible click as the valves energize.

I happen to have a small berm at the end of my driveway and a steep access road to the driveway. I tried the system out on the berm and when it held just fine, tried it out on the access road. You can see the angle (as compared to the horizontal defined by my neighbor's house) as well as the snow and ice on the road. The line locks worked great! Pop it in neutral, step on the brakes, lift the safety cover and flip the switch (see picture at upper right). You're now 'locked'. To release the line locks, just flip the safety cover back down, which automatically releases the brakes. Which also means that if you haven't got your foot on the brake pedal you will start rolling.

After that, it was off to a local trail, where the line locks also performed flawlessly. In typical trail situations, where you may be in and out of the vehicle a lot without shutting it down, this kit is way convenient. It took me a grand total of about two uses to be able to flip the cover and switch nearly simultaneously to engage the system while stepping on the brakes. The cover's design releases the line locks when the cover is closed, so releasing the brakes is as simple as closing the cover.

Engagement is positive and solid. Suzushi wouldn't move at all even as I climbed in and out. I could move the truck with the brakes engaged only if I deliberately applied a lot of power, but it's certainly not possible to do so accidentally without noticing the system is still engaged. Release is smooth, which makes getting rolling again easier. There's none of the binding and sudden release associated with use of a mechanical e-brake alone.

I also tried leaving the truck sitting on the locks for a period of time, to see if it would roll at all on its own. There was no discernable bleed-down or movement in ten minutes of holding on a hill, after which I got bored and drove on :-).

--Scott Gomez

Pork Barrel Engineering PO Box 240 100 Main Street Calpine CA 96124-0240 Orders +1 (530) 994-9994 Fax +1 (530) 994-9934

'As Designed' photos courtesy of and © 2001 Pork Barrel Engineering