Rear Brake Lines

[Albert Grattan]

I am having problems bending the rear brake line to the two wheel cylinders

It has an arc and a bend at each end to go to each cylinder.

If I bend it first, I can't get the flaring tool on the line as there is not enough room for the flaring tool ( fitting is in the way ).

If I flare it first then I can't get the bender in close enough as the fitting is in the way and the fitting won't go around the bend.

Can I use Stainless Steel Braided line in its place or is there a trick to doing this bend for the rear brake line??

Thank for your help

BERT

[Dave72dt]

I've bent lines by hand around a socket to give me a tighter bend. Most conventional tubing benders don't work for a tight radius close to the fitting.

[JBNeal]

the 1/2 ton wheel cylinders on the rear axle can be done by getting the flare nuts on first, flaring the tubing, and bending the tubing by hand. I recall using a large phillips screwdriver to get the radius right. I also recall having to make several attempts before I figgered out how to do it without kinking the tubing. Instead of making one bend with one radius centerpoint, I massaged the tubing so that it had a bunch of radius centerpoints to eventually approximate one radius bend. I've also used a long coupler on the flare nut to get a better grip on the tubing. It's tedious, but it is metal forming, and sharp turns always take multiple passes in order to stress the material without creasing or tearing it.

Edited July 4, 2011 by JBNeal
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