I just figured I'd give someone a heads up on this since if I had been aware, it would have saved me a lot of frustration, brake fluid, time, and gas money to and from the store.

I had a bad caliper or hose on the passenger side of my car earlier this week, replaced it, and everything was fine. So yesterday I went to replace teh caliper and hose on the driver's side of the car.

No matter what I did I could not get the brake line to seal to the caliper. I got some channellocks out and held that caliper in one hand and torqued that socket wrench down with the other with all I could muster, and no matter what I did I had a constant, moderate brake fluid leak. Turned a 45 minute job into a 4 hour job. I thought I had gotten it all done, took a break, came back out and saw a stream of brake fluid running from my mounted caliper down the driveway.

I went through 4 sets of copper seals. I exchanged my new caliper for another, and bolted it up and the leak was gone. Then I found out I bolted the brake line on backwards.

Took it apart and flipped it, and the leak was back. I didnt know why, but I just went and go another brake line, and presto leak fixed.

Turns out the line was hitting the edge of the brake caliper. I've included a fancy MSPaint diagram. Joy!

Apparently the lip of the brake caliper was interfering with the seal of the line. I compared my old line and my new line, and I put a bolt through them both, and sure enough on the old line the place where the fitting changes into a cylindrical shape with the rubber hose was about 1 mm closer to the center of the banjo bolt holt.

I dont know how common or rare this is, but it caused me a hell of a lot of stress and frustration, and maybe it will help someone else.

 

That's actually pretty common... especially with aftermarket brake lines.

Over the years, whenever I've had it happen, I've just used 2 copper washers.

 

Thanks for this great tip and info. I searched through the forum and this may solve a similar problem regarding left rear caliper.