ive flared and bubble flared steel brake and fuel lines before but my cheap faring tool cant seem to flare stainless steel 3/16" brake line! it just pushes through the vise clamp that holds it. i understand that stainless is harder to bend/flare but what does everyone use to bend there own stainless lines???!!!?

this is basically what i use. and yes i break them alot lol

http://www.toolking.com/products/105...glebase=W80670



i really need to flare these new stainless brake lines im running and i dont want to use steel for the front brakes since my front brakes have always sucked

 

I use a flare tool designed to do stainless (imperial eastman). What you also have to do is use a cut of wheel or a saw to cut the stainless. Do NOT use a pipe cutter, It'll cold work the stainless and it will work harden making it next to impossible to flare and it will most likely crack. The best option is to use a single flare on seamless tubing, this gives you the best chance at making a perfect flare. If you do this, use a flare nut and sleeve to back up the single flare. The sleeve will take up the distortion from torquing down the flare nut. This is why you use double flares when only using a flare nut (and double is always used on non seamless tubing since only the outside is smooth so you have to fold it twice so the outside of the tubing becomes the sealing surface, otherwise you'll end up with a flare that has a seam in it). Make sure you use soft annealed stainless, the hard is next to impossible to work with using hand tools.
The most important thing for you to do now is to stop buying cheap tools and invest in a high quality tool.

 

do you have a part number for the stainless cutter? see i also used a pipe cutter to cut the piece.... ive never bent/flared stainless before so this is all new to me. so i'll use a cut off wheel now on.

this is the tubing i got. 3/16" summit stainless brake tubing 20ft.

http://store.summitracing.com/partde...5&autoview=sku

these are the fittings i have

http://store.summitracing.com/partde...4&autoview=sku


now would the single flare seal when all the lines/fittings use bubble flares? what are the tube nuts/sleeves that i would need? i have assorted 3/16" steel brake/fuel line fittings etc, i want to reuse the stock components, such as the brake fittings to the master cylinder but other than that ive already got new fittings for the "T" for my front brakes to get rid of the stock proportioning valve and i had already installed a SSBC adjustable proportioning valve for the rears. i dont mind buying good parts but i wouldnt want to spend alot of money for a tool that i'll only use once and make like 6 flares with. would i be able to heat the tubing with a torch before flaring? would that help? or just weaken in.

the tubing is said to be double annealed... and it wasnt hard to bend at all. i could bend it with my hands

 

Stainless cutter? just use a cut off wheel.

Those nuts are for use without flare sleeves so if you do a single flare, be careful when tightening them. You might want to smear a little lube on the face of the nut so the flare doesn't deform.

A bubble flare is something completely different from a double flare, a bubble flare sort of looks like the initial first step when making a double flare.

I use the exact same tubing, it single flares pretty nicely. Just cut it off with the cut off disc, then clean up the end with files and make absolutely certain the cut is smooth, no burrs. Only then make the flare and it'll be fine. It will seal up just fine with a single flare.

Now, what type of flare do you want to make? single or double inverted flare or a metric bubble flare?

 

im sry i meant to say stainless flare tool?

i want to make the flares neccessary to reuse the stock master cylinder fittings. i also am using those nuts from the link but they are steel.

pic of the difference of a double flare and bubble flare.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1201238131.jpg

im not sure which one it is... the stock one that i cut off looked like the bubble flare. i just looked at the master cylinder and it looks like it requires a bubble flare... it also looks like all the stock lines with the stock fittings have bubble flares as well. would a double inverted flare still work if it replaces the bubble flare?

 

I think these cars use M12 and M10 metric fittings (haven't had mine apart yet, I just bought it last week). Did you buy metric flare nuts? If you did you need metric sized lines also, not 3/16th. You'd have to drill out the flare nuts to be able to use them and that would take out a lot of the chamfer in the front, this chamfer presses against the bubble flare and makes it seal without deforming. A bubble flare tool is very expensive compared to a normal inverted flare tool. Especially if you want to do stainless.
A much cheaper option might be to use AN hardware. I use that too most of the time. You can buy m12x1.5 & m10x1.5 (I think those are the sizes for the master, if not you need other adapters) to -3 an adapters and then use an hardware from thereon.

Buy an imperial eastman 400F flaring tool or a cheaper one from aircraft spruce (I think he has them for around 100$ or less) and do a 37 degree flare. You can simply use a single flare and then use the flare nut and sleeve. That's the neat thing about that system, the sleeves are readily available. And a 37 degree sealing surface has more area than 45 for inverted or bubble

Double flaring stainless is a biotch and you need a very expensive tool, otherwise the work hardening will crack your flare cone and it needs to grip the pipe a lot better than the el cheapo tools do too. I had an expensive belzer (German brand) flare tool for 45 deg. flares and I cracked it instantly when doing double 45 degree flares.

Here's a small article I wrote for my corvette site, it explains an sizes, tube nuts & sleeves.
http://www.vettemod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=256

 

yea... im not going with metric tubing and all that cr@p... i already have the 3/16" and 1/4" tubing and all the standard fittings... the flaring tool i have is standard as well. i just so happened to but the 3/16 tubing in stainless bc i needed to replace my front brake lines bc ive replaced everything in the braking system and i still cant get my front wheels to lock up... the only thing left is the hard lines. i wanted stainless bc they are stronger and i wont have to worry about rust etc but if its gona be this big of a pain i'll just get sum steel line and just double inverted flare it....

my only real question left is that the stock stuff is bubble flare but will a double inverted flare still seal it? since i dont have bubble flare tools i can do single and double inverted flares... if i bent new line will the double inverted flare seal where bubble flares onnce were? and u never answered if i heat the stainless tubing and then try to flare it... will that work? unless ur comment about it hardening and cracking was the answer to it.

 

You will need to buy adapters to go from bubble to inverted flares. It'll run you quite a bit of $$ for all the adapters in the entire brake system. Might as well buy a bubble flare tool then.

so you are going to use 3/16 line, but you can not use them with the metric bubble flares. These cars have metric bubble flares everywhere, this also means the lines are metric sized 5mm (I think) so you can not mix those 3/16 lines with metric bubble flare nuts.

You can heat the stainless and let it air cool but since you already have the double annealed it will flare just fine. I have used that line also (from summit) without any issues, anywhere from fuel to brake systems.

A double inverted flare will seal just fine, a bubble flare is just a different type of flare.

You may have all the standard fittings but your MC is all metric, as are all the other connections, those un flare nuts will simply not fit.

 

i just went ahead and bent and double inverted flared the stainless... it was alot easier to flare one i heated the tube endes. i was also able to mix sum of the stock metric fittings(master cylinder,rear brake distribution block, etc) to work with the standard lines. i just drilled them out alil bit. worked great.... now when its all back together i'll bleed the system and HOPEFULLY they dont leak :/

thanks for your help, FYI i like the stainless tubing alot better than the steel... they say its harder and more of a pain but it was easier to bend and flare than the steel for me and it seemed to keep its diameter when i bent it vs the steel where i had to worry about kinking it.