Flaring steel brake lines

I've got the -03 steel tube nuts and sleeves already. Going to start flaring my brake lines soon. Am I correct to assume that I can just flare it with my AN flare tool? No double flare stuff is required???

the jegs kit i bought for my 68 restomod ALL had to be double flared. it sucked but not near as bad as finding it out after i had all the short PIA lines made for the proportioning valve!

the steel nuts and tubes are good, but toss that brake line, stuff cracks and is difficult to mess with. Chassis guy turned me onto the stuff he uses, its got an alloy blend to it, more flexible....corrosion resistant, and much easier to work with. Napa stocks it, I'll have to get the part number when I go back out in the shop. I used a std flaring tool, and yes double flare.

So double flare even for a standard 37* AN flare?

richter69 wrote:the steel nuts and tubes are good, but toss that brake line, stuff cracks and is difficult to mess with. Chassis guy turned me onto the stuff he uses, its got an alloy blend to it, more flexible....corrosion resistant, and much easier to work with. Napa stocks it, I'll have to get the part number when I go back out in the shop. I used a std flaring tool, and yes double flare.

is it black? i looked at some at carquest but already had the jegs kit.

Everything I've read states that 37* AN stuff is single flare only. The purpose of the steel sleeve is to provide support for the single flare...

When flaring the black coated stuff you need to remove or "Buff" that material prior to flaring. We used to make that kind of stuff here at work and I made a bunch of brake lines for my car when needed along with some spares. And definitely double wall flare if you are not using an ISO flare (Not likely).

John,

If you are using AN type fitting or "Tube" fittings with the sleeve then you don't need to double wall flare.

cool40 wrote:

richter69 wrote:the steel nuts and tubes are good, but toss that brake line, stuff cracks and is difficult to mess with. Chassis guy turned me onto the stuff he uses, its got an alloy blend to it, more flexible....corrosion resistant, and much easier to work with. Napa stocks it, I'll have to get the part number when I go back out in the shop. I used a std flaring tool, and yes double flare.

is it black? i looked at some at carquest but already had the jegs kit.

copper tint

Is that the stuff at NAPA? Is it straight pieces? I can't stand coils of brake line.

I was in the shop and forgot to look lol, its coiled, but its a lot easier to work with than steel lines. It was from Napa, and had a napa sticker on it. I wont ever use that other stuff again.

richter69 wrote:the steel nuts and tubes are good, but toss that brake line, stuff cracks and is difficult to mess with. Chassis guy turned me onto the stuff he uses, its got an alloy blend to it, more flexible....corrosion resistant, and much easier to work with. Napa stocks it, I'll have to get the part number when I go back out in the shop. I used a std flaring tool, and yes double flare.

Sounds like Kunifer 10. Copper/Nickel alloy. Good stuff used extensively in Europe.

Thanks. I'll see what I can find locally.

Using a single or double flare has less to do with the 37* vs 45* angle of the fitting, and more to do with the material the brake line tubing is made of. Some brake line material can sometimes develop small cracks/splits on the flare sealing surface during the flaring process if you only single flare the line. In this situation double flaring the line prevents the cracks/splits from forming & spreads the load over a larger area.

The straight cheap/seamed auto parts store "no kink" steel brake lines that comes in different lengths (I think 5 or 6 ft is the longest they carry) should always be double flared regardless of the style fitting used (like the 45* inverted flare fittings or AN 37* tube nut/tube sleeve type fittings) to help keep the line from splitting/cracking the flare sealing surface.

Most of the bulk stainless steel brake line sold for race car/AN fitting use can usually be single flared with no problems because the S/S tubing is supposedly seamless and a little softer than steel brake line, so it's less likely to split/crack during the flaring process.

Thanks Dave. There is a local hyd shop I can get some SS stuff from. Any certain wall thickness I should get? They seem to have it all. Thick to thin, seamed and seamless...

The Chassis Shop used to carry 3/16" annealed 304 S/S hard line with a wall thickness of .035", they still might have it.

Rick Jones/Quarter Max had complete brake fitting/line kits having your choice of either steel or stainless steel hard line. IIRC both complete kits were somewhere in the $180-220 price range each.

If you decide to go with a steel hard line over S/S, (and don't want to use the dirt cheap silver "no kink" auto parts store straight lengths) but you can't locally find the copper colored stuff Jon mentioned earlier, Applied Racing Technology's (ART) 2011 catalog shows they have it in a 25ft coil for about $30.