Nickel copper brake.fuel lines.

The fedhill stuff. It has to be cut square on the end and chamfered on the outside and no bure on the inside before double flaring. I cut it off and then clamp it in a old flaring tool vise and file the end square. Easy to hold and makes for a nice square end. We use the fedhill flaring tool. Expensive yes but cuts down on a lot of time.
 
Just got done making all new brake lines for my truck and used the fedhill copper/nickel tubing. Really easy to make nice bends but making good flares was a challenge. For some reason the flares got worse as we did more of them. Tried some scrap steel line I had and the flares came out perfect.
 
What style flare tool did you use? The press type tool that fedhill sells works perfect and less time then the old screw type. But the ends have to be square and deburred. Eastwood sells a knock off version of the fedhill tool. Its not the quality tool of fedhill . Takes more effort to mess with it to get the same results. You get what you pay for and quality isnt cheap.
 
skidmarks said:
What style flare tool did you use? The press type tool that fedhill sells works perfect and less time then the old screw type. But the ends have to be square and deburred. Eastwood sells a knock off version of the fedhill tool. Its not the quality tool of fedhill . Takes more effort to mess with it to get the same results. You get what you pay for and quality isnt cheap.
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We used the turret type from Eastwood. When I ordered the tubing from fedhill they were showing their tool as out of stock. It still puts a nice flare on steel tubing. Live and learn.
 
Joe777>>>For some reason the flares got worse as we did more of them.>>>

Can you describe what they looked like? Perhaps did the 2nd flare look off-centered or lop-sided? Can you post pictures of the worst ones?

Jack E/NJ
 
What I ran into with eastwood turret type. The flare was off center and it was due to the dies . The fedhill flare tool has a nicer machine finish to all the pieces. Eastwoods will do the job but you have to pay.closer attention. Do the second step in two step. Flare it then turn the tube 180 degrees and finish the second step.
 
Well I used to be able to post pics but now it is asking for a url and no option to select a pic from my computer?
Anyway, yes the flares were coming out with one side kinda dished out. Never tried rotating the flare between step one and two. There is some slop in the design of the Eastwood tool.
 
The problem I see with eastwood is the die that holds the tube is a rough casted piece . The fedhill dies are machined out of a block. I think thats were the tolerance changes and lets the tube move off center. When I rotated the tube was on the second step. Hit it about half the way of the full second flare then rotated the tube and hit it the rest of the way. No issues on the first flare. Did it in one pass
 
Joe777>>>yes the flares were coming out with one side kinda dished out>>>

skidmarks>>>Also it is very important to have the end of the tube cut square and debured inside and out.>>>

Yup. Square cut, debur inside & chamfer outside. 3 of the 4 requirements that I've found for making a perfect bubble almost every time.

The 4th? I found that using a tubing cutter carefully to make the tubing cut is critical to avoid an off-center lopsided bubble. A tubing cutter will pinch and reduce the tubing diameter at the cut's face to achieve a tighter fit with the die pin keeping the die better centered in the tubing. Accordingly, I square & deburr the cut sparingly so as not to remove too much of the pinched metal.

I also try to avoid over-tightening the 2nd flare in the flaring tool. Preferring instead to make the all the final compression inside the inverted flare fitting itself for a leak-free connection every time. A flare-nut wrench should be used to get a solid compression in this final step.

Jack E/NJ
 
Thanks for all the tips guys! I thinks I have all the connections, except for maybe one, made and leak free. If I do replace the one line I will follow your advice. Thanks again.
 
The only issue I had is it made the other lines under the hood look shabby (oil filter lines, ect.) Had to redo them all to make it look right!
 
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