How To: C15a Wire-3 restoration

[Bob Carriere]

......found near impossible to do in one piece using SS....so I cut and installed a joint after the t case cross member.

Bob C.

[Grant Bowker]

To amplify Bob's comments on stainless, we were using line that came straight. We've since found SS in coils that was easier to form (nowhere near cooked spaghetti nor like old dry spaghetti). Straighten from the coil as you go, but then you are forming the curves on the fly and would have to do the flares (at least some of them) on the truck (and stainless doesn't always flare nicely, particularly with cheap tools). I did the 15cwt trailer with copper-nickel line and it did form nicely to follow the frame contour, through cross-members and flare on the trailer

[rob love]

Personally, I think stainless is a bit of an extravagance. Regular bundy line will outlast most of us.

I have been lucky in that I have found a couple of the kent-moore J8051 double flaring kits at surplus stores over the years. They would be very expensive to buy at retail, and do a fantastic job of brakelines and fuel lines. They were the standard in all the military shops when I was younger, but now with the metric lines, they have kind of fallen out of favour.

[Grant Bowker]

My thought on stainless was that, yes it does cost more but in the big scheme of the cost of restoring a complete vehicle I could live with the extra and the line would be unlikely to deteriorate either inward or outward (even if I wasn't as diligent as ideal about flushing the fluid to eliminate accumulated moisture). It does come down to personal choice, bundy, conifer, stainless - all have merits/advantages.
I think everyone has a favorite brake line flaring tool and a corresponding hated one. The tool I used on the stainless lines is sold by Eastwood and many others. I have never had it do an unusable or leaky flare. Call it luck, lack of operator skill with the other tools used... your choice. It is very much intended to be used clamped in a vice - not an on-vehicle tool although there are tools that use similar dies and should work on vehicle. I did think it extravagant to spend that much on a single purpose and rarely used tool but certainly appreciate the lack of aggravation doing a flare, discovering it is poor, cutting it off, redoing (maybe more than once), discovering the line is now too short to fit..... One observation about this style of tool compared to the "standard" bar clamp and screwdown flaring die is that it does require a bit more distance between the flare and the last bend in the line if the line is being bent before flaring.

[Jordan Baker]

Thanks all for the discussion and comments. I’m using the nickel copper line so it’s pretty flexible. I did pickup one of those brake flaring tools as pictured by Grant. I also picked up the straightening tool Eastwood sells. I have to say that it does a great job of taking the coiled line and making it very straight. The tool pictured, although pricey, to me it was worth it. It is very easy to use and does great flares with little effort.

As for my fuel line, I’m going to try and do a single piece for going to the back. I feel that the nickel copper line will be flexible enough to get it all in place.

[Jordan Baker]

Is this the correct route for the long line to the rear? Would the large holes in the cross members have the felt washers in them? Lastly would there be mounting clips along the way at a few of the bolt holes in the frame?

[rob love]

I won't speak as to what ir original for the chev CMP, but common practice for brake lines (and fuel lines) is that they are clamped along the frame rails so there is no vibration of the line. There should be no need for grommets of any kind on the holes through the crossmembers, as a properly clamped tube should not be moving. It should be bent so it is not touching the edge of the hole of the crossmember.



Princess auto sells the wiring clamps with the rubber cushioning in them. In the military supply system they are called clamp loops, and come in a large variety of mounting hole sizes as well as the clamp size. They will be on sale starting on the 4th of March at Princess. They are prefect for securing the brake lines.

[Grant Bowker]

The route looks OK.
Yes, there would have been grommets (talk with Brian Asbury - he used to have them in felt, early ones may have been rubber).
Securing clips were used along the lines (and even if they hadn't been used originally I would put them on to ensure against vibration wearing through the line at any contact points you don't notice). Most surviving clips I've seen have been plain metal similar in shape to the photo.