Interesting Brake line block off tool

D

DICK SPADARO

Well-known member
I dont know if I'm ahead of the curve or behind the curve but I was picking up some stuff at the local parts store and the counter manager was playing with something that just came in and he asked me if I had seen it. It is a neat little shop tool for stopping the line leakage when you break a hydraulic line and don't want to contaminate or let fluid leak all over when pieces are disassembled. Anyway I thought it was a neat little tool and very simple comes in different size ports based on line size 3/16-1/2". Here is a quick picture of the clamp, its sort of one of those "hey why didn't I think of that items." Anyone used one of these yet?
 

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Pretty tricky, I usually try a piece of fuel line and a pencil...

Or the little rubber covers that sometimes come on bleeder valves. When they're there, they are real handy.

Karl
 
I also used to use a hose and a pencil. But now I'm ahead of the curve and use plugs made from synthetic corks (for wine bottles) and a cork borer set. Also use them for plugging gasoline, fuel oil and vacuum lines and whatever else needs plugging up. The wines I prefer not only have ethyl alcohol but also flavorful amounts of fusel oils, and higher alcohols once used in brake fluids, and whatever else that makes them taste so good. So I don't worry about these corks not being able to stand up to plugging all kinds of fluids. 8^)

Jack E/NJ
 
I used to have two clamps that closed off the transmission lines that go into the cooler in the radiator. They had a thumb screw that tightened a rubber stopper into the line to close it off. With the radiator out of the car you could start the engine to move the car about the shop.
 
As a kid back in the early 50's an older neighbor buddy and I were always tinkering with old cars. A front brake cylinder was leaking on his car and as always we were broke. As a quick fix we cut the brake line and folded it back on itself and battered it shut. Problem solved, or so we thought. We knew the car would pull to one side when we applied the brakes, but we could compensate for that. Not realizing we had changed the mechanical ratio with the master cylinder/wheel cylinders, we couldn't push the brake pedal hard enough to stop the car.
 
That's a pretty handy tool, who makes it and where do I get them?
Sure beats what I use, you know those foam ear plugs that you roll between your fingers and then they expand, they work ok for oils, but sometimes they get stuck inside the line and I have to extract them with a Sheetrock screw.
 
Back in the 50'a, I had a leaking wheel cylinder and no replacement handy. A copper nail stuck into the brake line and then screwed back into the wheel cylinder solved the problem. Like Shadetree, I knew it would pull to one side, but I could compensate for that till I could get a new wheel cylinder.
 
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