The Sealey VS0348 spanner is the best of all the ones I tested by a mile. The trick to using it is to prepare the flare nut properly first. Scrape off all the rust on the flats you can see - and on the ones that you can't see. The tools I used were:
- Sharp-bladed screwdriver
- New Stanley knife blade
- Sharp, pointed bradawl
- Emery cloth
- Very small wire brush (hand)
- Small wire disc brush (mains drill/Dremel)
- Modelmakers file set (to clean up rounded corners between flats)
- Plusgas
The Bradawl is to get right into the joint where the flare nut meets the union bracket. The less rust & muck in there, the further the Sealey will go onto the flare nut.
Spend as long as it takes getting the nut back to the best possible state before trying to undo it. Then give it some Plusgas, wait for a couple of minutes and wipe the nut down. The Sealey was now such a good fit on mine that it had to be edged onto the flare nut bit by bit until it was right up against the union bracket. I did all that and it had no trouble at all undoing both of my rear unions - they both cracked on the first anti-clockwise turn. None of the other spanners I'd bought would have done this.
So if anyone else needs to get their brake pipes disconnected - buy a Sealey VS0348. Fantastic bit of kit.
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