Dam you rear brake hose!!!

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BigPinoyHunk

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i decided i had to replace all my brake hoses because of the cobra brakes (well duh), and that included the intermediate hose. the intermediate hose was ever so slightly leaking so i was a must with the conversion. i go back there and try to remove it and it will not budge with some liquid wrench, line wrenches or whatever. i even stripped the line with a line wrench and none of my lines going off of the intermediate hose will budge. so i had no choice but to wife wheel off all the lines.

i'm so mad that the conversion isn't going so breezy. after looking in there, it doesn't look like it'll be breezy to replace the line because of the transmission being pretty tight on the trans tunnel.

i think i might have to take it 2 feet at a time at the prop valve until i can get into the trans tunnel. i was hoping i can maybe just cut a section out of the line and hopefully just put in another line fitting and reflair the line. i don't know if there is enough room in there to do all of the flairing while its on the car.

any of you expertise manually making intermediate lines or repairing lines while on the car? buying a prebent intermediate line is probably out of the question because they are never and so far from what they are suppose to be and i'm sure with that long of a single line will be impossible to do with the transmision/engine installed and the car is on jackstands and not on a lift.

any help would be appreciated!

 
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Yup I've done it, with everything still installed, except for the shock reenforcement panels.

It's not bad, I actually came through the engine bay and fed it down the tunnel,

Once the front is fed correctly you get underneath and start to get it into position to get the clips back in.

It's very time consuming, working little by little took me about 3 days after work little by little getting it situated.

The front is bent like an S and the back half is straight so it make more sense to feed it back from the engine bay so you don't have to bend anything. You have to go under the car to guide it from getting hung up and then get up and push it in a few inches from the engine bay.

 
Yup I've done it, with everything still installed, except for the shock reenforcement panels.

It's not bad, I actually came through the engine bay and fed it down the tunnel,

Once the front is fed correctly you get underneath and start to get it into position to get the clips back in.

It's very time consuming, working little by little took me about 3 days after work little by little getting it situated.

The front is bent like an S and the back half is straight so it make more sense to feed it back from the engine bay so you don't have to bend anything. You have to go under the car to guide it from getting hung up and then get up and push it in a few inches from the engine bay.
shaun at SOT said its best to just go straight off of the front bowl of the MC and then go into the adjustable PROP valve and then go straight to your lines (cap off the rear brake ports on the combination valve). so at least the bends at the engine bay will be minimized. however, the guys at vintagevenom.com still uses the combination valve with the adjust able prop valve.

do you say doing the entire line is something for someone who has bending lines? :p:D i'm also assuming you probably went with a 2 foot line and then did a serious of 4 foot lines to reach back there. i hope the local part stores have the proper unions for brake lines that have the nipple inside for sealing.

 
Man I have been there. I am not sure about the line kits for 71-73's, but the long line for my '69 that I bought fell right into place. The rest of my lines I bought had to be modified, but that was because of all the brake conversions and changes I made to the car--not the lines fault.

Good luck--your car will be better for all this when you are done.

 
just what ever you do don't go stainless steel.

If i had to do mine over again i would not use stainless again.

 
to make matters worse, and with the thought of possibly repairing the intermediate line, i went to bust loose the other end of it at the combination valve and it won't budge. to keep it from further stripping, i take out everything from the MC, and all other lines (other lines came off beautifully) and i absolutely had no choice but to cut the line and hammer on a socket on it. even with a socket on there i had to get a 12 inch rachet and step on the valve and two hands to bust loose the fitting. talk about tight now and really wouldn't come off with a wrench or even a line wrench. and it looks like the thing was red lock tighted.

after further and further looking at the lines, it really doesn't look too bad i guess. just have to undo all of the clips holding it in and trying to follow the line best i can.

I might be completely removing the old combination valve and just run a tee-fitting for the front disc and running the adjust prop valve straight from the MC back to the rear brakes.

 
I just changed all mine out. Found a local dirt track speed shop that had all the stainless flex and fittings to change out the factory single crimp rubber lines to stainless flex. all components ran me right at $100.

I even took the rear brass distribution block, cut the rubber line off, drilled and threaded the block for 3/8"-24 thread incoming fitting and fitted it with stainless flex lines. looks factory!

rear brake hose.jpg

 
I went through this with my brakes i had one really bad hose that started the whole mess.

I thought OK I'll just replace one hose, of course that one hose wouldn't budge and before i knew it i had other hoses snapping off and before i knew it the entire brake system needed to be replaced.

What i learned was this, when one hose shows signs of deterioration you can be assured the entire brake system is in trouble. these lines rot from the inside out all the little particles float through the system and make cuts in the Rubber o-ring seals before you know it the master is leaking down your wheel cylinders are weeping out and if you are lucky it shows up first as a spongy brake pedal.

Take this as a sign like i did, its time to bite the bullet and overhaul the entire system. Change the hard and soft lines this is your chance.

Do you really want to skimp on brakes? as 40 year old cars its hard enough to panic stop without having issues with the system.

 
just what ever you do don't go stainless steel.

If i had to do mine over again i would not use stainless again.
A simple question? Why - Just not stainless?



I have no dog in this fight (figuratively speaking, of course), but go slow and don't get impatient Olie! Good luck.
Should that not be "A horse in this race"?

 
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sure:

Stainless steel is EXTREMELY hard compared to mild steel. on the brake lines are flared ends that seat against bass cones inside the brake hardware. Mild steel gives very easily as it is pushed into these cones and seals as the fitting is tightened down.

stainless steel will not give at all, and Cuts into these brass cones as you tighten down, instead of a large seal area were the cone fits inside the entire flair, the stainless will only seal on the top edge because it will not give. so what happens is you tighten down and you have leaks all over the place. So you crank down on the fittings WAY past there rated torque limits in an effort to get the flair to stop leaking. it is Very possible to Strip out a prop valve or a distribution block connection this way. Additionally the stainless will ruin the cone surface inside the brake hardware, forcing you to possibly replace brake hardware in the future if the system needs to be serviced at some point.

basically there is nothing wrong with mild brake lines, stainless steel is an overkill.

additionally Stainless steel lines are Pure hell to install around the firewall it does not bend easily at all and acts like a torsion-ed spring. this makes getting it to line up the flair and the cone so they are exactly 180 degrees apart even harder.

while installing stainless steel lines i ruined 2 Prop valves which i was not happy about.

if i could go back 6 years ago and do it all over i would of gone mild steel on the brake lines and just realized that over time they would rust but it would of been a very easy replacement.

The add-age of stainless lines cause more leaks is true because they are much harder to seal.

most guys switch to stainless and dot 5 and then complain about the leaks, dot 5 isn't thinner then dot 3 its just they don't realize the stainless is a bear to get sealed.

i use dot 5 silicon and stainless lines, it took me 3 months to get the entire brake system to seal 100%

if i did it again i would go dot 5 and mild steel on the lines.

 
I also bought a disc/disc setup MC for a 2000 v6 mustang to replace the MC I bought over 12 years ago!!! I bought a new tee fitting for the front brake lines. These seem to be good lines still.

I have stainless brake hoses that goes to the calipers. So those r new. The only old anything now will be the front hard lines! I'll replace them soon enough too. Those now are the most bleeding!

 
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