Stainless Steel Brake Lines Installaion!!!

[Mikey-Mike 02]

Hi, I bought some stainless steel flexible brake lines for my 03 Impala and couldn't get them on.

My plan was to cut off the old cable with a utility knife. and use a ratchet on the part where the hose was and a wrench to hold the brass/permanent part of the line from twisting. The old flexible cable wouldn't unscrew from the permanent brass threaded part of the brake line though. I tried for about two hours but things were starting to get stripped and stuff...

So I took my car and stainless cables to my dealer who agreed to put them on for me. It took them about a whole day and cost _a lot_ for labor, but they got the new lines on. And the work looks really clean, with nothing striped etc.

So... How did they do it????? Thanks!

[bigrod118]

Brake lines are easy, as long as you have the right tool, a flare nut wrench.

If you were having difficulty disconnecting the "soft" line from the hard line, then the hard line fitting could have been a little rusted onto the soft lines fitting. a little rust eater could have helped you with that.

Otherwise if they didn't couldn't get it off that way, they probabaly used a torch to heat up the fittings and then broke them loose.

For future reference:

take off brake line from caliper with socket or wrench, then take a flare nut wrench and open end wrench and disconnect the other sides fittings, repalce with new lines, use new crush washers on the caliper side of the line, and re-tighten everything.

Pretty easy actually, unless you had seized fittings.

[Mikey-Mike 02]

Drat. I am happy with my new setup but I did want to do the work myself. Also I noticed that the back brakes hadn't been working for quite awhile since the rotors were all pitted and rusted and there was a soot covering them.

The guy at the dealership said "they see that sometimes" and I think he said they lubricate those chrome sliders that the pads ride on in the calipers!?!

On my brake lines, I did actually hit those fittings with PB Blaster for a few consecutive days in advance before I started the work on Sat morning, and I figured by cutting the hose buy the fitting I could put a spark plug socket over the nut. That all worked, but that thing wouldn't budge. I put a 2' bar on my socket wrench to give me some more torque but it was only stripping the brass nut that I was holding in place with the other wrench.

The dealership took all day Sat., from 10 AM until whenever and they were done by 9 AM Mon.

Thanks again.

[Mikey-Mike 02]

Also... I didn't have the flare nut wrench as you describe... I had never heard of that until you mentioned it!!!

Thanks again for explaining!!!