Brake work is really not that bad.

Saturday night I got some more work done on the front brakes.  At this point, I have all of the lines finished, with the exception of the long line running from the front of the car to the rear.  I have to fabricate some small angles that will hold the AN to flare fittings in place and then the from brake lines will be complete.

I still have to rebuild the front calipers, and I have ordered the kit to do this with.  Hopefully, I have the kitchen early the week, and it is not a complete pain to do.

It might not be that bad after all.

I love the internet. After only a short amount of research online, I found the correct method of flaring brake lines that I alluded to earlier. I gave it a try, and lo and behold, it worked. Beautifully. I cut myself off a 3 inch piece of line, and tried to use the tool the correct way.

The first flare turned out near perfect. The clamping die is still causing problems because it swivels slightly offset from center, but I think I can live with the results. The second flare turned out slightly better, but still just slightly offset center. Once I clamp it into a fitting, they should be fine. Now I just have to re-do the front two brake lines, and start getting something done.

Brake work is not fun.

Yesterday was Steph's baby shower, so I spent about 6 hours out at the garage. Six hours should have been plenty of time to get a few things done. Not the case.

I thought that I would have some trouble, I would have been silly to think otherwise. Unfortunately, I had way more trouble than I would have ever thought.

To begin, working with the coil of tubing was very awkward, since it always wants to be in the way. Working with the tubing bender was not difficult at all. If fact, it was probably much easier than I would have expected.

Forming the flared ends was another story. First, I needed to borrow a tool from Autozone. The tool was not the best quality. It continuously wants to make crooked flares. Add to that, no one knew the correct method of using the tool, making it even worse. That's right, the experts that I relied on instructed me to use the tool in the reverse order. I spent close to 3 hours trying to form flares using the tool incorrectly, only to find out this morning how to use it correctly.

I was incorrectly instructed to use the straight flare tool first, and not use the die. So there was much frustration and ruined line. I will probably end up needing more line in the end.

I do have to give Jeg's kudos on these lines. The paint is excellent quality. It stands up to the beatings that I threw at it yesterday. Only when subjected to the tubing vise did it come off. And that is not a bad thing! It even took some scraping and digging to remove the paint after it was scraped off from the vise. This gives me great hope that this line will stand up to the beating of living under my car.

The ongoing brake saga

I was looking for replacement brake pads, and found out that a set (don't know if that's 2 or 4 pieces) is $70+! Yikes. Just for the pads!

Luckily, it turns out that I have a full axle set! Nice!

I still need to find a tubing bender for 3/16". I think I may need to just suck it up, and use one of the cheaper ones from Lowe's, 0r one of the auto parts stores. And a flaring tool.

Brakes, continued

I stripped most of the old brake lines out of the car last night. It wasn't too terribly bad, but it would have been a lot easier to do, if I had taken the body off of the car.

Master cylinder is installed, it just needs attached to the pedal. I can't do this until I get at least the front brakes installed, since I need to wheel the car out of its stall in order to open the driver's door.

The new brake line looks good, at least in the package. I went with Jeg's powdercoated steel lines. They were only a few dollars more than the plain steel lines, and it should offer more protection than me simply clear coating the lines by hand.

I've got all of Saturday to work on the car, so I hope to have at least the front wheel back together. Maybe even get the master cylinder hooked up.