Rear Brake Hose Removal - Advice appreciated
 

Shouldn't be a difficult task - but... After cleaning off some under coating gunk I find my brake line into the rear brake hose is armored. The armored line is preventing me from getting a line wrench onto the nut. I'm not going to round off any more brake line nuts. I'd appreciate your tips or experienced solutions. Thanks!

The armor is probably locked in due to the undercoat. If you wipe on some old traditional GO JO hand cleaner, that will break down the undercoating. You may have to let it sit and reapply multiple times. After that, you should be able to slide the armor back enough to get the line wrench on it.

Tim

And you're going to have to remove the coating all the way around the bend to get it to retract much. I can see the inside radius of the coils is pretty much touching now.
That is CRAZY thick undercoating !
I don't know how you feel about using lacquer thinner on a rag, but it may speed up the breakdown process some.

Wow - having just gone through a similar exercise on my Chevelle I feel for you. I gave up and ended up putting a new front to rear line and hose on mine.

If you can’t clean and pull back far enough for line wrench don’t use a standard open end wrench. You can get a better grip using a 8” or 10” handled adjustable sinched tightly on the fitting. Once loose you can used standard open end.

The craftsman wrenches for rounded nuts WORK GREAT on rounded flare fittings. They grip on the flats.

If you do retract the armor far enough to get a line wrench on it the fitting may still be frozen to the line. Soak liberally with PB Blaster for a few days. Then put the line wrench on and then clamp across the end of the wrench with vice-grips. this will compress the end of the line wrench enough to take out any slack

Yeah, I forgot to say that, soak the bejeezuz out of the threads while getting the coating off. Clamping the end of the wrench sounds like a reasonable idea, but there isn't much room for that. Hope it works for him.

Thanks SYC community !

Hearing how others managed similar replacements helps a lot. The PB Blaster is applied. I will try a careful turn with an adjustable wrench... you never know.

Then (uughh) I'll tackle some undercoat clean off, but who knows how far back that cleaning would have to go !

If other ways fail, it may be a brake line replacement, but now I worry about how this under coat crap may conspire to cause problems with that. Ending on a positive note, the
undercoat did do it's job to protect the undercarriage as shown by my floorboards !

Hahaha Wedding confetti shook out when seat was removed.

I see you are working on a Nova, show us some pics. We all like pics here...

'

All great advice above!
What of carefully cutting the armor wire a coil or two above fitting so line wrench fits through?
Cutting both sides would allow easier removal of pieces also final cut as far back as possible would hide end then shot of black when done if leaving other areas untouched?
You may want to V-Grip the Flex side fitting for solid pushing against line wrench also even though you're not heating Flex side, with tools in place ready, a shot of Spray-Freeze carefully on Line fitting instantly before cracking may allow a slight temp difference between threaded pieces so line side shrinks slightly smaller and lets go first try?
If not, it's always worth trying to tighten so any movement can get it working back/forth.
Best of luck w/ everything also YES to the more pictures thing too!
:beers:
~ Pete

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Thanks for these great suggestions Pete. I did use the freeze technique and it freed up the brake line from one of the wheel cylinders !

So much easier to learn from the experience of others. Then I don't swear (quite as much) :)

Thanks to member BJCHEV396 for passing on his NOVA L78 license plates to me.

Don can you explain the freeze technique

Looks like a very nice original Nova. You can also try a little heat from a torch to break those lines, but not too hot.

I can't explain the chemistry of it, but here's how it works. You go to Staples or some other place that sells a aerosol spray air duster. It's really meant to blow dust and small particles out of computer components.

Shake it, turn it upside down (yes, upside down, not a mistake) direct the spray. It comes out very very cold and "boiling". Wear protective gloves of course.

Rear Brake Hose Removal - Advice appreciated
 

Snap-On fuel line wrenches win hands down compared to Craftsman, they grip on all six points of line nut vs. 5 points on Craftsman. How do I know? I've rounded off line nuts with Craftsman and never with Snap-on.

This^^^^^^^^

Agree 100%, learned this from my days wrenching for the magazines. I still have that set of Snap-on line wrenches, and I bought them used in 2002, and they still work great.

Snap On line wrenches are absolutely the best, I have a set from the late 80,s/early 90,s and they still work excellent today. Plus they are not clunky like other brands.

There is a line up and test of every imaginable flare wrench on youtube... the snap on wrenches have the least amount of slack and if not mistaken won in every category except one, in which it placed second.

Very good comprehensive test.

I will state that my father has the S&K's which rate as 2nd best performer of the actual LINE WRENCHES(2nd place is VICE GRIPS). This is a REALLY GREAT set of line wrenches which are better than most people will ever need and are 1/3 the cost of the SNAP ON's.