plusgas

Use a flare nut spanner on the union as well. If you don't already have one then halfords sell them for about £8.

ill definitely take things easy!

besides.. the mrs will murder me dead if i cause her to have to catch the bus to work lol

Copper grease is not compatible with the internals of brakes. Keep it well away from unions and anything in contact with brake fluid.

tackled this job on the weekend.

passenger side rear was slow going, nursed the spanner over the flarenut, and gingerly rotated it back and forth fractions of a mm at a time, and gradually increasing the swing over 20mins until eventually i got it free and swapped in a new brake cylinder hurrah!

problems came on the rear driver side.

i ended up rounding off both flarenuts either side of the hard line and they showed no sign of coming free... this was after applying generous amounts of heat.

so in the end i decided that i was going to have to replace the hard line and learn how to do this!


quick trip to machine mart later, i came home with a pipe bender, a flare kit, flare nuts and several meters of brake line.

the signs were ominous from the start as once i removed the flare kit from the box there was a large sticker on the case saying " For use only by Qualified Mechanic's "

so.. i thought i'd actually do a bit of research on how to use it!

10mins later after watching a few vids on youtube, i decided that a double flare would be the best way for me to go.

i cut the new pipe from the coil and proceeded to use the pipe bender, remembering advice i had seen/read in countless westfield build blogs, which said to clamp the bender into a vice to avoid kinking the pipe.

this process went smoothly and without a hitch.. and so began the flare job.

clamping it into the flare tool as tightly as i could get it using a vice grip/mole grip and a 32 ring spanner over the end of that to get extra leverage, i began the first flare.

flawless!! and so i did the second.. looked absolutely great!!

and then i realised.. i had forgotten to put the flarenut on.. Grrrr!! so in the bin it went and i started again! after that i managed to get it all bent, flared and ready to fit in a few mins.

then i had to tackle the rounded nuts on the old pipe.. so out came the hacksaw and i cut the pipe up against the inner flare nut and quickly swapped the brake cylinder ready to install the hard line, that just left me with the rounded nub of a flarenut to deal with.

.... A HAMMER! yes, i hammered a smaller size socket onto the damn thing and used my air gun to tear the thing out! awesome ( ill have to figure out how to get that nut out sometime lol )

the rest of it went together pretty quickly and easily, and after a quick bleed i thought i would be done.

i wasn't.. the both rear brakes were binding like never before! they felt like the hand brake was still on, so i stripped the drums back off again, and realised i had to reset the ratchet type mechanism on the pads to pull them back in.

and now all four brakes can spin free and no longer bind or make any noise what so ever!

Happy as pie now

thanks for all the tips guys

total job time, about 10.5 hrs .. next time will be much faster lol

10.5 hours isn't too bad for a steep learning curve with fastners that don't want to play! Glad to hear it went well.

old brake cylinders with pair of pliers i managed to break



Close up showing the remnants of the bleed valves



Flare nut stuck in socket



Brake Pipe



Another View



Closeup of inner flare.. nice and dry



View with wheel on.. clear of all obstructions

Well done Won't win any beauty awards (the pipe) but looks functional enough; satisfying doing quite an involved job yourself, hey.

Nice work, always good to see DIY spannering.

I went through the same hassle when I had to remove a driveshaft. Would have been just the driveshaft except the brake flexi had fused to both car and cylinder and had to be cut off. So I ended up having to replace both brake cylinders, then of course both adjusters were seized and required rebuilding and so on. Every nut and bolt a pain.

On the plus side, the brakes were SO much better afterwards, the rears must have been doing virtually nothing before.

Btoken tools, snapped pipes, nuts stuck in sockets, KUDOS sir, that's just how we prof mechanics do it