So i bought two new brake hoses for my 88 firebird from rockauto this past weekend. I finally get to opening the boxes and notice that the hoses them selves say Dot Sunsong SAE on them? I go back to my order on rock auto and look at the pictures and sure enough they look like the SUNSONG 2201025 and SUNSONG 2201119 were as i ordered the AC Delco 18J290 and 18J340. Those pictures clearly show brass fittings on the ends while these are not brass.

Is Ac Delco selling repackaged Sunsong brake lines or did something go wrong at rockauto and i should contact them?

Thanks all for information and advice.

 

Every set of brake hoses I've bought the last 5 years are Sunsong. Ordered several brands, all Sunsong in the packages. I've seen Sunsong hoses in ACDelco packaging, so I'd say it's normal.

The "brass" is really just steel with a zinc plating. Most of the current hoses seem to skip the zinc, probably because it's unnecessary, expensive and hazardous.

Did your hoses come with the copper crush washers? If so are they the right size? All the ones I've bought lately are either missing washers completely, or they're far undersized. The correct washers should have about a 17mm OD, the "ACDelco" replacements are about 13mm OD.

 

Wow very interesting stuff! I wonder whats happening there...

Yes they did here are some pics of the washers. I measured them with my digital caliper they show 16.5mm? not sure where they are supposed to go thats why im including pics.






So these are fine brake lines to go with obviously and have no other choice i guess? haha
Thanks

 

This is where the crush washers go, one on each side of the block.

RBob.

 

Ahhh ok for both sides of the banjo bolt?

 

Yep, one on each side of the block. Looks like the ones you've got are the right size. More often than not, the supplied washers are much narrower than the shoulder on the banjo bolt. ACDelco 21012386 are only about 12 or 13mm OD. Dorman 484180 look to be the right size. Grainger 5ZLU2 are fairly close too. It's just annoying how hard it gets to find basic hardware.

 

Yeah I hear you on that one! I always have trouble finding correct hardware...


thanks again

 

My Raybestos say Sunsong too. After a few years, the ends start to rust. I'd pay 3 times as much to get USA hoses.

 

I put rock auto ac delco brake hoses on the car last summer and now I'm curious if they're sunsong as well. I'll take a look later today

 

Reviving an old thread however the same thing happened to me. AC Delco price of $23 for an AC Delco rear brake hose and I get a cheap Sunsong pipe costing $9 from the same Rockauto site.

I am not sure whether to believe that its normal that AC Delco are using these cheap Sunsong materials or whether this is a case of counterfeit products..... For sure quality of this hose is nowhere near what ACDelco should be.

 

GM doesn't own ACDelco. AC Delco and "ACDelco" has never made a part. Only thing that ACDelco makes is money, boxes, bags, and ACDelco labels.

GM cars and trucks are built with cheap and shoddy Made in China parts because that's all that GM will pay them to make so I wouldn't expect there to be anything else in an "ACDelco" box today.

I put these same ACDelco brake hoses but Raybestos brand on all of my friend's 3rd gens in his collection and my 3rd gens too. They fit fine and work well. $36.79 with tax and FREE shipping from Amazon for all 3 hoses for a front disc rear drum car like my 1992 Firebird.

 

That's not quite true...

AC stands for Albert Champion. He and some other d00d who was the "financial backing", started up a spark plug company, but couldn't use the name "Champion" because some other spark plug company was already using that name. So they named theirs AC.

Delco is an abbreviation for Dayton Engineering Laboratory Co. of which Charles Kettering was a principal. They invented such trivial things as the points type ignition system, the generator, and the electric starter. (or at least, developed a version of those things that was practical for using in cars) A company named United Motors bought Delco. GM acquired United Motors, and Kettering even eventually became president of GM. United Motors had also acquired the AC Spark Plug Co. so all of those names came to GM as a package deal. In fact United Motors was a distributor chain selling GM electrical parts well up into the 80s and maybe beyond. Kelly Davis (RIP), he of the DUI product line, worked at UM, which is where I met him back then.

Today however the auto industry is probably among the most globalized ones there are, behind only oil, mining, and food. Nearly all parts, new and replacement, are made by the lowest bidder in the place where that can be done the cheeeeeepest. (and least costly too) Which is why you see SO MANY parts made in China, India, Turkey, Mexico, etc. and so few made in the US, Europe, Japan, Canada, etc. regardless of the name on the stickerzzzz. All of the replacement "brands", which is what AC Delco is now, nothing more than a brand name on a package, buy their parts from the lowest bidder, wrap a box around them with their own name printed on the outside, and sell them for whatever premium their brand name can command.

Don't fall for the box-name gimmick. Pay attention to what's INSIDE the box, not what's printed on the OUTSIDE. Since auto parts are so universally standardized, there's usually no material difference between one that's sold by a supposed US vendor, and one from a vendor located elsewhere, as far as the parts themselves are concerned; and in fact for many types of parts, there's only a few suppliers, often you can count them on the fingers of one hand, that supply that part type to THE WHOLE industry. I wouldn't be surprised if "Sunsong" makes the brake lines for half of all new cars built, or even more. Sure, there are some scam artists in the business just like any other, and some people who will cut corners any way they can to increase their profit margin; butt that's true of any business or any country of origin. Pay attention to the PART not the STICKERZZZZZZ.

 

OK seems I'm wrong about ACDelco. I thought that sometime after the Covid-19 era that AC Delco was spun off from GM and was a holding company that still maintained its relationship with GM being an aftermarket and OEM parts supplier but wasn't owned by GM anymore. With parts becoming ACDelco Silver & ACDelco Gold aftermarket parts and ACDelco Original Equipment parts.

 

RIght: GM lumped all of those electrical divisions into an entity named Delphi and spun it off in the mid 90s, 96 or so as I recall, to raise cash. It was long gone even before the 08 financial crisis when GM filed for bankruptcy and spun off the money-losing parts, which Delphi would have been in that scenario, into "bad GM" ("Motors Liquidation Company", stock ticker code MTLQQ) while they held onto "good GM" (stock code GM). One asset they retained that DID NOT go with Delphi: the extremely lucrative AC Delco brand name for replacement parts, with its very high customer retention and brand awareness. Delphi is an actual manufacturer of things. AC Delco no longer is. SOME AC Delco parts are sourced from Delphi. Some (most I daresay) are from elsewhere. For example, I bought some relays for my truck recently, and AC Delco ones won the RFQ at that moment; butt when they arrived, some Denso relays came off the truck in an AC Delco bag. Denso is a Japanese company, an OEM supplier to the likes of Toyota and Honda, so in that sense, on a par with Delphi. Delphi (and Denso, and Bosch, and Dana, and Federal-Mogul, and...) sells parts to ALL KINDS of OEMs. Kinda like, if you look under the hood of alot of Jeeps (once AMC, then Xler, now owned by whoever has kicked the Xler football down the road another notch), they come with Saginaw (GM) steering boxes. Delphi, last I knew, was located in Ireland, to which it fled for tax avoidance purposes. Its management these days is THAT kind of people: cutthroat sleazebags that will do ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING to fatten up their end-of-year bonuses. I have ZERO respect left for that company.

 

I've bought brake lines for BMW's and Toyotas and Lexus's. No matter what is on the outside of the box (unless you are buying OEM from dealer) it seems to be Sunsong on the inside.

That city sounds familiar

Sunsong North America, Inc.

3535 Kettering Blvd
Moraine OH 45439

Earlier this year, Homeland Security raided Sunsong’s offices in Moraine, Ohio, following allegations of illegal transshipment..... : https://prosperousamerica.org/china-...ect-committee/

 

Moraine is just south of Dayton. Which of course is where Delco started. Maybe that was one of the pieces of "bad GM" that found a path through the wilderness to survival and eventually got bought out by an East Asian company. Iunno.

There's LOTS of stuff around the Dayton area named after Kettering. I used to have to visit Kettering Hospital near there occasionally for example. It's in between Kettering and Moraine, across the street from the Moraine Country Club.

 

Have friends in Dayton OH, and hit the Trans am nationals yearly (now in Fairborn).
lot of rich past automotive history in the area. To bad it's probably never coming back.

 

I was an SW Ohio boy a long time ago. Still a Bengals fan!

 

Delco used to have great stuff...and they still do...sometimes.... but a lot of it is just reboxed stuff that you can get at almost half the price under a different name.....

Do research when buying parts and you and your wallet will be very happy!