I bought a set of 164 hoses from the dealer and while I
don't remember the exact prices I remember that I didn't
feel ripped off. Granted, they are rubber hoses, but I
suspect that the lifespan of the rubber hoses is on the
order of 10-15 years.

You can take the old hoses to a hydraulics shop and they
should be able to make you up hoses in any format you wish.
I think the rubber hoses are good enough and the brakes are
good enough in my 164.

I think you would be shocked to see how well a correctly
working stock brake setup works on a 140. I don't think
many modern cars have brakes as good as a 140, when looking
at new/correct in both cases.
chris

ipd carried the stainless hoses for 140 series for quite a while. They were discontinued because the end fittings that attach to the hardline (chassis end, not caliper end) were too long and suffered metal fatigue; which resulted in cracking, which then lead to loss of brakes. This only happened on a small percentage of cars - something less than 2% if I remember right; but the liability is simply too great.

We tried to get the manufacturer to change the design to prevent this, but they were unable to do so.

Part numbers I show for the 140:

Rear: 670201; 687309 as an alternate
Front Upper: 677712
Front Lower: 677713

For the 164:
Rear: 687309
Front Upper: 678923
Front Lower: 678922

Some time ago I received a real good lecture right here on the bb about why ipd should continue to sell the 140 brakelines despite the failures we'd learned about. Interestingly, the same person who felt that we should continue to sell these parts was the same person - and only person - who reported having trouble with another part we'd been selling without any problems whatsoever; and told us to stop selling it for safety reasons.

If a customer threatens lawsuit over a product, the product usually disappears. I wish I could offer a better answer, but that's the bottom line.

Sorry/thanks,

Cameron
ipd

Good chance you can have 'em made up to suit... there are shops that will put whatever fittings on whatever types of hoses you want... Wouldn't know where to look, but you can probably have it done locally.

Might talk to some of the hot rod type dudes 'n chicks... the ones that have all their hosery done in braded stainless cuz it looks so damn cool.

-Matt