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Old 4th June 2020, 19:52   #11
edwardmk
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Quote:
Originally Posted by marinabrian View Post
Pedal needs to be to the floor, but apart from that perfect advice

I normally find the hexagon on unions at this point wasted through corrosion, and take the opportunity to replace what will be usually a poor condition front to rear pipe.

So my method is chop off the pipe flush with the union, then use a single hex socket to unscrew the union from the flexi

If you don't already own a pipe flaring tool, I can recommend this as to my own choice LINK


You will in all likelihood want to get a pair of THESE too

Best of luck

Brian
All items ordered and on their way. Many thanks for the great advice. The rear rigid pipes were supposedly replaced about five years ago, but I guess that's plenty of time for more corrosion. 3/8" too small, 7/16" too big on the flare nut in question, so no better than the metric. When all the bits are in place I can get properly serious lol
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Old 14th November 2020, 15:42   #12
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I am having the same trouble getting the flare nut off my front brake line and I am considering getting a blowtorch as per various recommendations on this site. However, a couple of things concern me: firstly, is brake fluid flammable and if so I presume I need to drain the brake line (or even the entire system?) and secondly, is there an effective way to protect the inner wheel arch from the heat (or will the years of encrusted crud do that???). Thanks in advance.
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Old 14th November 2020, 23:18   #13
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Be careful heating up the end of the flexi hose. They go off with a heck of a bang when heated up !
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Old 14th November 2020, 23:54   #14
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Originally Posted by DrDick74 View Post
I am having the same trouble getting the flare nut off my front brake line and I am considering getting a blowtorch as per various recommendations on this site. However, a couple of things concern me: firstly, is brake fluid flammable and if so I presume I need to drain the brake line (or even the entire system?) and secondly, is there an effective way to protect the inner wheel arch from the heat (or will the years of encrusted crud do that???). Thanks in advance.
Since I knew very little I watched hours of You Tube videos. I realised there were many pitfalls. Lots of great advice in this thread already which really helped me. I found one guy online who swore by freezing the joint and didn't like heating, but the majority go for heating. Some techniques seemed too careless for me. I don't think brake fluid is flammable, but I put a plumbers pad behind the flare nut when I tried heating it to protect the car (and not risk insulation by crud lol). I didn't get any result from Plusgas, WD40, Ferrosol or Deblock oil. Cooling or heating also didn't help in my case as the flare nut stayed stuck to the rigid brake pipe. Maybe I should have drained the line first? I don't actually know the answer to that, but I was afraid if I drained the system I might compromise the ABS and need a T4 session which would mean my putting the car on a trailer to the nearest T4 which I think is north of Exeter for me. That would be quite inconvenient.
In the end I cut the retaining spring which released the flexi enough to rotate the flexi out from the lock pattern cut into the holding bracket. This meant I didn't have to rotate the flare nut and the seized pipe. I made up a new large s/s washer and rotated back in the new braided flexi from an outfit on eBay (and fitted new retaining springs from Rimmers at the same time.) https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274286573074
Unfortunately you wouldn't be able to use the standard OEM flexi with this method since you couldn't rotate it back in due to the cutout in the bracket engaging with the gnurled lock ring on the flexi.
I'm sure others more experienced than me will come along with advice and correct me if I got anything wrong, but so far my brakes seem fine, and all is well. Good luck. Just take your time to get it right, 'cos getting it wrong with brakes is not an option we want to explore. I did all this as I wasn't confident about using a brake flare tool and replacing the hard brake lines.
Next time though I'd probably go for convention since making up the s/s washers took me probably just as long as getting used to working with a brake flaring tool!
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Old 15th November 2020, 09:19   #15
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try something like these for undoing the nut
https://www.fireprotectionshop.co.uk...kaAmosEALw_wcB

I have used these many times with great success

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Old 15th November 2020, 11:32   #16
Mike Noc
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Only use heat as a last resort. If the fitting is seized then cut the solid pipe above it, hammer a surface drive socket on and it should shift - never failed for me.
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Old 15th November 2020, 12:25   #17
edwardmk
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Noc View Post
Only use heat as a last resort. If the fitting is seized then cut the solid pipe above it, hammer a surface drive socket on and it should shift - never failed for me.
Thanks for that. In agreement with Marinabrian's post. Useful to hear that re-inforced by another experienced member
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Old 15th November 2020, 12:59   #18
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Heat didn't work for me - the front unions were too badly rusted.



I used a Duratool D03363 mini blow torch, which is very accurate and has enough wellie, but heating these two was never going to work so I cut them off.
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Old 15th November 2020, 13:13   #19
Mike Noc
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Did you use a surface drive socket and give it a good few clumps with the hammer? That helps break up any rust in the threads.


















.

Last edited by Mike Noc; 15th November 2020 at 13:16..
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Old 15th November 2020, 13:59   #20
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No, I cut the pipes & hoses and replaced the whole lot.
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