Brake Lines Blues-Rear Calipers

6

68/70Vette

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Torrance, Ca.USA
On my 70, I have Tom's trailing arms and Stainless Steel Brake Corporation (SSBC) aluminum rear calipers. I have a set of stainless steel brake lines from In Line Tube for OEM replacements. The brake lines for a stock Corvette will not fit if you have the SSBC calipers. For my 68, with it's VBP trailing arms, the brake lines would fit at the trailing arm input, but not at the SSBC caliper. Now, with my Tom's trailing arms and SSBC calipers, the stock brake line will not fit at either the trailing arm input nor at the caliper input.

What to do?? I talked with In-Line Tube. I'm going to build double flare brake lines out of copper tubing that fit my Tom's trailing arms and the SSBC calipers. The copper lines will have the correct fittings on them. If you want to dummy up brake lines or fuel lines, use copper...it's so easy to work with and double flare. I'll then send the copper lines to In-Line and they will laser scan them and then they will regenerate a new set of brake lines for me in stainless steel with stainless steel fittings. Don't know how much this will cost, but I've had them do some custom work for me in the past and they were very reasonable.
 
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I dunno, some years ago, I replaced the rear brake line with plain steel, about 1/4" dia. used 2 sections, coupled along the frame rail, pushed it into the stock location without much fanfare, and replaced the cross one too, ordinary steel lines outta the store....:lol::chinese:
 
phantomjock said:
Sounds like a clever - yet expen approach.
Have you tried DIY? This looks like a worthwhile start at bending, and a double flaring tool isn't all that expensive as I recall.

http://www.eastwood.com/Brake_article

Cheers - Jim
Click to expand...

Yes, I've done a lot of tubing. However, for stainless steel tube, you need a hydraulic press tool. The minimum cost is about $500. So I've shied away from stainless...also it's hard to bend.

I've bought several tube bending tools, one for each tube diameter. Also, have a nice double flaring tool (won't do stainless though).

For the 68, I did the tubing for all my gas lines from the tank to the fuel pump/filter and also up near the engine carb. I used Cunifer tubing. (Cu= copper, Ni=nickle, Fe=iron). It's a little softer than steel tubing, but much harder and durable than copper. It doubles flares really well. Some auto manufacturers use Cunifer, for instance Volvo has used it for gas lines. Google. There's a distributor in Maine. I probably have 6 feet of it in my 68. Probably used 25 feet or more tubing to fabricate the lines. Everytime I made a mistake, I trashed the line and started again.
 
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mrvette said:
I dunno, some years ago, I replaced the rear brake line with plain steel, about 1/4" dia. used 2 sections, coupled along the frame rail, pushed it into the stock location without much fanfare,...:lol::chinese:
Click to expand...

The single length of brake line from the Master Cylinder (actually from the distribution block) to the brass junction block near the driver's side trailing arm, can be removed and installed in one piece without removing the body. It looks impossible, but it's not. Have done it several times. The trick is, when you remove the old line, don't cut it! Remove in one piece....it'll be PITA the first time you've done it, but it'll give you the training to install the new line in one piece. The old line, and the new line, have to be swirled around to fit the line through all the nooks and crannies. You need to jack the car up high as you can and also be prepared to move and replace the jacks as you maneuver the line. The hardest part is torquing in the end of the brake line into the brass fitting near the driver's arm trailing arm. It's a job for Needle Dick the Bug F**ker.
For the 68, I had to get a small tubing socket wrench use a torch and bend it slightly to get a grip on the fitting. The 70 was not a problem(!!!!).

I've done about 4 brake line installs from the MC to the rear trailing arm block.
The first time took a long time...the last time about 30 minutes.
 
phantomjock said:
Sounds like a clever - yet expen approach.
Have you tried DIY? This looks like a worthwhile start at bending, and a double flaring tool isn't all that expensive as I recall.

http://www.eastwood.com/Brake_article

Cheers - Jim
Click to expand...

Just got my quote from In-Line Tube today. They received my 3/16" copper tube mock up of the brakes lines I want. The copper tube lines I sent them were double flared with steel fittings. Double flared them myself. I have the tools to double flare tubes up to steel in hardness, but not stainless. In-Line will laser scan the copper lines, and their computer controlled automatic tube bending machine will replicate the lines in stainless steel and I'll get stainless steel fittings. They have commercial hydraulic tooling to do the double flare.

To duplicate these two brakes lines in stainless steel lines, double flared, and with stainless steel fittings they want.........about $50+, total. In addition, they are friendly to do business with. This is extremely reasonable. The minimum price for a hydraulic tool to double flare 3/16" SS is about $500. And.....if you double flare SS by yourself, even with the proper hydraulic tool..there is a question about work hardness.....to just farm this out to a professional organization has a lot of merit. Look at the quote..$50+. No way to do it myself.
............

Using copper to mock up your lines seems like so easy. It's so easy to bend and double flare. The problem is that it's really too soft. Once you install your mock brake line, if you distort it while removing it, you will then cause the subsequent laser scanned stainless steel to be in error. On one of my copper lines, I reinstalled it and removed it since it seemed I distorted it on original removal.

If I had this to do over again, what would I do. I have ordered 3/16" Cunifer tubing. It's not as soft as pure copper. It's a little softer than steel tubing. Mocking up a brake line in Cunifer means a little less concern about distorting the tube when you remove it. ...And also...if worse comes to worse.....you can use Cunifer alloy as your brake line.......Volvo has used it . It doesn't have the shiny look of stainless, it has a dull slightly purplish look to it. No bling, but it's extremely corrosion resistant to Sweden's salty winter roads.

If you want to buy Cunifer, just Google Cunifer. Last week I bought 25 feet of 3/8 inch tubing and 6 feet of 3/16 inch from a distributor in the state of Maine.
 
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Got my custom brake lines back from In-Line Tube!! From previous postings in this thread, you learn that I sent them my mocked up lines in copper because it's so easy to work with. Today I received the repro'd lines in stainless steel with stainless steel fittings. They used zip ties to pair my copper lines with their repro stainless steel lines to demonstrate a faithful copy. Side by side, they look identical. This was at a very reasonable charge....I paid $50 for the repro SS lines. As I related in previous threads, there's no way I could have done this myself without a minimum expense of $500 for a SS tube hydraulic flaring tool.

The brakes lines I'm talking about are the lines from the trailing arm to the caliper. I needed custom lines because I switched out the stock cast iron caliper s with Stainless Steel Brake Corporation (SSBC) aluminum calipers which have a different location for the brake line input. PS everyone today seems to be using Wildwood aluminum calipers which are not apparently that expensive as SSBC calipers. I stuck to SSBC because they worked out great with my 68. I did have some problems with my SSBC calipers for the 70...described in other postings.

Obviously, In-Line Tube does gas lines. I'm now toying around with the idea of custom designing some gas lines from the tank area to the engine. Currently, I have 3/8" SS gas lines. But the gas line appears to have a crimp at the frame dog-leg to horizontal frame transition. Looks like fuel line constriction. I want to pump gasoline to a 600 hp BB engine under acceleration. I have some 3/8 inch copper nickel iron alloy 3/8 inch line that I might want to custom design this "dog leg."


So far I'm moving at glacial speed on restoring the 70. !... I'm now trying to move progress up. Working 40-50 hours a week at my job, and a lot of personal trivia on weekends, is a major problem!!!!!!!
 
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