Sab-a-dab-a-doo! The back-country LJ build has officially started
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Have you seen my welds?
Have you seen mine?
Scott - instead of three short hard lines from the valve body to the bulkhead fittings, can you find braided steel AN flex lines that short?
After I realized that I had an issue making hard lines that short with the K-Tool flaring tool, I quickly looked at my go-to flex line supplier from my Formula SAE days in college - Pegasus Auto Racing Supplies. Their minimum length is 6". I didn't look anywhere, else, though. Once I figured out the Ridgid flaring tool might work, I switched to that solution. Of course, the Ridgid tool may end up not working for me, and at that point, I guess I can look for other flex line suppliers, or even attempt to make my own.Have you seen mine?
Scott - instead of three short hard lines from the valve body to the bulkhead fittings, can you find braided steel AN flex lines that short?
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What doesn't this surprise me at all.
I watched my university's Formula SAE team build out a car in detail over 2 years for the school's first car ever. Their attention to detail was exactly the way you approach design. Precise.
Meanwhile, we were in the next bay building a Baja SAE car. Totally different approach - 'That'll work - tack it!' style of fab...
Both teams had a blast, just in different style.
Function combined with attention to detail, awesome work. Also appreciate the step by step nature of this build thread.
Quick Saturday lunch-time update. I messed around with hard brake lines a bit this morning (with a bit of frustration), but I'm not ready to post anything, yet. Then I messed around with the Power Mountain Off-road Jack I recently purchased, and I've posted about that here.
However, I do have another build update to post. My LJ is a Rubicon, but I'm switching to ARB lockers. I'll be leaving the connectors for the OEM locker pumps on the OEM harness, and since they are sealed connectors, to protect the terminals from corrosion I've got some mating Aptiv Apex 2.8 connectors with cavity plugs to connect to them. Here's the connector showing how the cavity plugs insert from the backside, through the seal:
And here they are on the harness:
I hope to post again this evening. Stay tuned!
However, I do have another build update to post. My LJ is a Rubicon, but I'm switching to ARB lockers. I'll be leaving the connectors for the OEM locker pumps on the OEM harness, and since they are sealed connectors, to protect the terminals from corrosion I've got some mating Aptiv Apex 2.8 connectors with cavity plugs to connect to them. Here's the connector showing how the cavity plugs insert from the backside, through the seal:
And here they are on the harness:
I hope to post again this evening. Stay tuned!
I didn't post last night because the afternoon turned out to be just as frustrating as the morning, with regards to making the stainless steel brake lines, and I just wasn't in the mood to post (I was doing battle with the situation in my head.) What I'm struggling with is cracks in the flare. I have two things working against me. First, stainless steel brake lines work-harden very easily. I initially tried cutting with a cutoff wheel on a rotary tool, but the cuts came out crooked. So I attempted to straighten the cuts on a disc sander. Then I deburred the inner and outer edges with Inline Tube's tool:
And I had cracks in the flares. Upon closer inspection, the inside cutter (lower right in the pic above) left chatter marks on the end of the tube. I think these turned into cracks.
Out of desperation, I tried a traditional cutting-wheel-in-a-c-clamp-style cutting tool (knowing the stainless would ruin the cutting wheel eventually), followed by inside and outside deburring with a stone wheel on a rotary tool. This completely eliminated the chance of chatter marks causing cracks in the flares. I then used the Ridgid #41162 37° flaring tool I just acquired to flare the very short lines from the cutting brake master cylinder to the bulkhead fittings. This tool is very nice, and does an incredible job on flares. I hope it holds up to the stainless because it's not cheap ($174 with tax on eBay was the cheapest I could find.)
One nice feature I didn't know about until I received it is that it has a unique clutch assembly in the stem that disengages when the flare is complete. Here's the stem clutch engaged:
And here it is disengaged:
As you turn the stem handle, some mechanism inside the stem separates the handle from the stem with each turn of the handle. The pin I circled above is what connects the handle to the stem, so once the flare is complete, the handle separates enough to disengage the pin. Genius!
With one of the short runs made, I used a Fragola Hose Test Kit to pressurize it, and I submerged it in a bucket of water to test for leaks:
Crap! Both ends leaked. One very badly, the other less so, but that was only at about 100psi with air - no way that will work for brakes. Upon disassembly, I was surprised to see very small cracks in the flares using a magnifying glass. And that's when I quit for the day, and the battle in my head raged.
My wife and I went to dinner last night with the elderly neighbor I talk about on here. At one point, he said, "you're awfully quiet tonight." Before I had a chance to reply, my wife said, "I can tell from the look on his face that he is thinking about the Jeep." I just smirked at that. Like I've said before, I married a keeper. She gets me (too well?)
So, this morning I woke up having an overnight epiphany. Using that traditional cut-off tool is the culprit - I think. It work-hardens the end of the tube because it doesn't just cut the tube off - it pinches it off. And that is a work-hardening process! I'm about to head out to the shop to try again. I'm going to just use a hacksaw, one of my favorite tools, to cut the tubing off square (using a guide). Then I'll follow everything else done above.
I hope this works! Stay tuned...
{And if you've worked with stainless brake tubing and have tips for me, or just words of encouragement, send 'em - please!}.
To skip to the next post for the cutting brakes project, see Post 614.
And I had cracks in the flares. Upon closer inspection, the inside cutter (lower right in the pic above) left chatter marks on the end of the tube. I think these turned into cracks.
Out of desperation, I tried a traditional cutting-wheel-in-a-c-clamp-style cutting tool (knowing the stainless would ruin the cutting wheel eventually), followed by inside and outside deburring with a stone wheel on a rotary tool. This completely eliminated the chance of chatter marks causing cracks in the flares. I then used the Ridgid #41162 37° flaring tool I just acquired to flare the very short lines from the cutting brake master cylinder to the bulkhead fittings. This tool is very nice, and does an incredible job on flares. I hope it holds up to the stainless because it's not cheap ($174 with tax on eBay was the cheapest I could find.)
One nice feature I didn't know about until I received it is that it has a unique clutch assembly in the stem that disengages when the flare is complete. Here's the stem clutch engaged:
And here it is disengaged:
As you turn the stem handle, some mechanism inside the stem separates the handle from the stem with each turn of the handle. The pin I circled above is what connects the handle to the stem, so once the flare is complete, the handle separates enough to disengage the pin. Genius!
With one of the short runs made, I used a Fragola Hose Test Kit to pressurize it, and I submerged it in a bucket of water to test for leaks:
Crap! Both ends leaked. One very badly, the other less so, but that was only at about 100psi with air - no way that will work for brakes. Upon disassembly, I was surprised to see very small cracks in the flares using a magnifying glass. And that's when I quit for the day, and the battle in my head raged.
My wife and I went to dinner last night with the elderly neighbor I talk about on here. At one point, he said, "you're awfully quiet tonight." Before I had a chance to reply, my wife said, "I can tell from the look on his face that he is thinking about the Jeep." I just smirked at that. Like I've said before, I married a keeper. She gets me (too well?)
So, this morning I woke up having an overnight epiphany. Using that traditional cut-off tool is the culprit - I think. It work-hardens the end of the tube because it doesn't just cut the tube off - it pinches it off. And that is a work-hardening process! I'm about to head out to the shop to try again. I'm going to just use a hacksaw, one of my favorite tools, to cut the tubing off square (using a guide). Then I'll follow everything else done above.
I hope this works! Stay tuned...
{And if you've worked with stainless brake tubing and have tips for me, or just words of encouragement, send 'em - please!}.
To skip to the next post for the cutting brakes project, see Post 614.
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I don't have anything helpful to offer mechanically, but one of the things I continue to enjoy about your thread is that you are documenting the details and difficulties in what seem to be small, simple stuff but in reality isn't and you only know after you get your hands dirty. And in sharing your learnings you are giving a peek of what it takes to get a high level of build be successful for someone like me looking in. The analogy I see for myself is some of the programming work I do at work to automate parts of my workflow (note - I am not a programming expert, but just know enough to get by for most tasks). Sometimes it goes as planned, sometimes I discover complexity in the problem that I had not realized before, sometimes the simplest things takes forever and sometimes it's dealing with stupid legacy code that someone else wrote.
Sri - you get it! I'm posting some of these struggles because I've searched extensively for answers on the Internet, and they don't exist. Kind of like watching a YouTube video where they go from "Ok, next step is to do X," and the next scene is, "And now that X is done, we do Y." But then you try to perform X and discover it's not simple, and they skipped the struggles showing eventual success. You then realize that they didn't show that because they want to look like experts, not as someone who is learning as they go. Skipping the struggles and not showing "how to do X" is disingenuous.
Life for me is continuous learning, so I like to help others stumbling upon my posts because they are struggling, too, by showing the process that no one else has shared.
When I restored my ‘66 Mustang I used SS brake lines. I fought them for a year even with a bunch of advice from the forum experts. So many leaks. Eventually, I found some copper conical “gaskets” to fit in between the line and fittings. Solved the leaks 4 years running now. I don’t know if they have such gaskets for AN fittings, mine were standard double flare.
Thanks, E-Ticket! One of the reasons I went with AN fittings is that they only require a single-flare. Due to the work-hardening sensitivity of the stainless lines, I didn't want to deal with flaring twice, as each flare is a work-hardening cycle for the tubing. I've not seen any type of copper "gasket" for AN fittings, unfortunately. However, I first have to solve this cracking problem because I don't think a gasket would make up for a crack in the flare.
E-Ticket, your wish is my command! I now know if using the hacksaw works, but you'll have to read through to the end for the punch line. Sorry!
To cut the end as square as possible, I used the vise from my drill press as a guide (as seen below, marking up the side of the fine Heinrich vise in the process
):
Next, I clamped it in some aluminum v-jaws in my bench vise and carefully filed the end smooth, and as square as possible, with a hand file:
Next, I profiled a rotary stone to deburr the ID (this will have to be done frequently when making all my brake lines, as the stone takes a beating from the stainless line):
I deburred the OD first, and then the ID, using the stonel:
In an attempt to keep the Ridgid flaring tool die in the best condition as possible, I put some extreme pressure grease in a plastic cap to use on the tubing end prior to flaring:
Finally, I flared the ends with the Ridgid tool (see my last post for a picture of the tool). The flares looked great, but I couldn't get a good picture, so you'll just have to trust me.
Lastly, I used the Fragola pressure test kit to test the first one, and no leaks! Woo hoo - success! With that success, I made the other two lines, tested them successfully, and installed all three of them. The lines had to have small bends in them to line up, so I used Lisle 44150 tube-bending pliers to great effect:
And done:
Bleeding this is going to be interesting, but I'm not even close to doing that, yet. Lots of hard lines and flex lines needed to finish this cutting brake installation. I've order this jeweler's tool to use for cutting and filing the tubing so I don't desecrate my Heinrich vise any more:
Stay tuned...
To skip to the next post for the cutting brakes project, see Post #624.
To cut the end as square as possible, I used the vise from my drill press as a guide (as seen below, marking up the side of the fine Heinrich vise in the process
):Next, I clamped it in some aluminum v-jaws in my bench vise and carefully filed the end smooth, and as square as possible, with a hand file:
Next, I profiled a rotary stone to deburr the ID (this will have to be done frequently when making all my brake lines, as the stone takes a beating from the stainless line):
I deburred the OD first, and then the ID, using the stonel:
In an attempt to keep the Ridgid flaring tool die in the best condition as possible, I put some extreme pressure grease in a plastic cap to use on the tubing end prior to flaring:
Finally, I flared the ends with the Ridgid tool (see my last post for a picture of the tool). The flares looked great, but I couldn't get a good picture, so you'll just have to trust me.
Lastly, I used the Fragola pressure test kit to test the first one, and no leaks! Woo hoo - success! With that success, I made the other two lines, tested them successfully, and installed all three of them. The lines had to have small bends in them to line up, so I used Lisle 44150 tube-bending pliers to great effect:
And done:
Bleeding this is going to be interesting, but I'm not even close to doing that, yet. Lots of hard lines and flex lines needed to finish this cutting brake installation. I've order this jeweler's tool to use for cutting and filing the tubing so I don't desecrate my Heinrich vise any more:
Stay tuned...
To skip to the next post for the cutting brakes project, see Post #624.
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Congrats on solving the edge cracking and getting those tight lines made and installed! Now we here and the rest of the internet have a guide for how to do the same with simple tools along side a good flare tool.
Also good for you to be back in business only a day later so you can continue to entertain us! Hopefully a good night on sleep awaits with this figured out.
Also good for you to be back in business only a day later so you can continue to entertain us! Hopefully a good night on sleep awaits with this figured out.
E-Ticket, your wish is my command! I now know if using the hacksaw works, but you'll have to read through to the end for the punch line. Sorry!
To cut the end as square as possible, I used the vise from my drill press as a guide (as seen below, marking up the side of the fine Heinrich vise in the process
View attachment 603369
Next, I clamped it in some aluminum v-jaws in my bench vise and carefully filed the end smooth, and as square as possible, with a hand file:
View attachment 603371
Next, I profiled a rotary stone to deburr the ID (this will have to be done frequently when making all my brake lines, as the stone takes a beating from the stainless line):
View attachment 603375
I deburred the OD first, and then the ID, using the stonel:
View attachment 603376
View attachment 603377
In an attempt to keep the Rigid flaring tool die in the best condition as possible, I put some extreme pressure grease in a plastic cap to use on the tubing end prior to flaring:
View attachment 603378
Finally, I flared the ends with the Rigid tool (see my last post for a picture of the tool). The flares looked great, but I couldn't get a good picture, so you'll just have to trust me.
Lastly, I used the Fragola pressure test kit to test the first one, and no leaks! Woo hoo - success! With that success, I made the other two lines, tested them successfully, and installed all three of them. The lines had to have small bends in them to line up, so I used Lisle 44150 tube-bending pliers to great effect:
View attachment 603379
And done:
View attachment 603380
Bleeding this is going to be interesting, but I'm not even close to doing that, yet. Lots of hard lines and flex lines needed to finish this cutting brake installation. I've order this jeweler's tool to use for cutting and filing the tubing so I don't desecrate my Heinrich vise any more:
View attachment 603382
Stay tuned...
Amazing! You are detailed and dedicated — Which makes great outputs!
Question - would you go SS again on this solution? Juice worth the squeeze (outside of a learning experience value)?
As of today - absolutely. Like any process, once you get it dialed, it's not so hard. However, I'm far from done, so I reserve the right to change my mind later.
Thanks, Jeff. If you'd like my file for the aluminum backing plate to order one from SendCutSend, I'd be happy to share that with you. I made the hole diameters .328 which is good for either a 5/16 screw to pass through or to add a 5/16-18 heli-coil to the holes. Their prices are so good, I don't bother trying to make parts like that myself because it's very difficult to match laser-cut quality by hand.