Female brake flares

[Sid]

Hi all,

In the past when connecting two lengths of brake pipe together I've used male fittings (all metric/DIN by the way) on the ends of my lines, and joined with a double female fitting. It works if a little bulky.

Anyway, in a pack of parts I bought a while back, there are single female fittings. They match what came off of my car. You fit it to one line with a double flare, or a female flare if you wish, and the other line has the normal male DIN fitting.

My male flare above looks bad because I over tightened it whilst trial fitting it.

So to my question. Do I make the female/double flare with the SAE die and punches? There's no DIN female flare option with my flaring tool (a decent one). I have seen one diagram when looking that says that's what you do, but it's only one diagram from one source.

So how do you do it? (As they're brake lines I'm not keen on making a daft mistake with this.)

Cheers, Simon.

 

[gaz1]

if your not sure of it make sure you have enough movement then cut the end off and do the male end again

ive only used the flaring tool 4 times and mine came out right to connect and there was no leaks with mine in all the pipes on 2 different cars

 

[Sid]

Hi gaz1, my flares above are just test pieces. I'd just like to hear if using a male DIN flare with a female SAE flare is safe, ideally by others saying they've done it without issue. I honestly can't see why it won't seal though.

 

[rtbcomp]

The fact that you can get couplers to do the job, I'd say use those instead of joining two flares directly.

 

[8ob]

Its used to be done like this years ago but the female thread was longer and the male fully threaded, If you put the two you have together you will find you only get a few threads in and it will bottom out. Not ideal Long female and full threaded male if you can find them or use the joiners.

Bob

 

[doubleboost]

Best way is a joiner male to male full threaded nuts
SAE flares were used on UNF unions up until the late seventies
As far as I am aware all metric unions are DIN

 

[Aaron_]

When I make brake pipes I always like to have the pipe that I've flared to but up against something soild like a brake cylinder or fitting so when you do it up it shape even better and not flared end to flared end as there both soft

Hope that make sense but that just opinion

 

[langy]

If I had to use a joiner I wouldn't do it how your intending flare to flare, use a proper joiner, me I wouldn't use a joiner and would just make a new complete pipe

 

[doubleboost]

If I had to use a joiner I wouldn't do it how your intending flare to flare, use a proper joiner, me I wouldn't use a joiner and would just make a new complete pipe

Sometimes we have no choice
The cost of replacing a pipe would out way the value of the vehicle
Manufacturers are putting more joints in to main pipes now
Not to make replacement easier but to speed up assembly I would imagine

 

[Kayos]

Nothing wrong with a correctly made joint imo, I don't buy the "it's more likely to leak" argument as I've made loads of brake pipes, some same as the original and some quite different, never had one fail yet

 

[Sid]

If I had to use a joiner I wouldn't do it how your intending flare to flare, use a proper joiner, me I wouldn't use a joiner and would just make a new complete pipe

I hear you. The join is where a line from the ABS unit snakes down to the bottom of the car, and then runs to the rear axle. Wouldn't fancy making that in one length.

I would still call them 'proper' fittings, they were OE on the car anyway, and I only bought them recently. The double female fitting seems the simplest option, and I know they work.

 

[Sid]

Nothing wrong with a correctly made joint imo, I don't buy the "it's more likely to leak" argument as I've made loads of brake pipes, some same as the original and some quite different, never had one fail yet

Ever used the male to female flare fittings I've shown above?

 

[doubleboost]

The male female joiner (no coupler) is used by manufacturers on steel pipes
Copper to steel is ok but I don't use it on copper to copper
Joiner unions are very cheap and look much better

 

[Kayos]

Ever used the male to female flare fittings I've shown above?

Yes, front to rears on a Vectra B, they are like that from factory on the bulkhead so I undid and replaced

As @doubleboost says tho, it was steel to copper

 

[Sid]

The male female joiner (no coupler) is used by manufacturers on steel pipes
Copper to steel is ok but I don't use it on copper to copper
Joiner unions are very cheap and look much better

Interesting. I hadn't thought about the differences between pipe materials.

Thanks Kayos.

 

[Turbo]

I try to run a full pipe without a joint if I can. If I have to joint a pipe I've never liked those male to female brake unions and I always use a fem/fem coupler with single flare male ends on the pipes. I was always told that the MOT man would fail a fem/male joint unless it was an original joint.

 

[rtbcomp]

I'd be inclined to clamp the joiner to the chassis too, there's quite a bit of mass with 2 nuts and the joiner to vibrate in the middle of a pipe.

 

[mfletch]

You can still get male brake pipe ends threaded to the end so you get a good amount of threads in the female

 

[normspanners]

metric fittings come in two lengths long and short the short are very close to running out of thread screwed into some female nuts I just bought some long ones the other day for this very job all ford joins are just a female to male usually the female nut is on the master cyl side of the length of pipe and the copper nestles nicely into the steel female flare-- I--- have never had one leak but have seen them with weeps on retest because the steel pipe was flared too hard.
from the mot side of things there is nothing wrong with a join, but in my eyes, as long as the copper pipe is well supported I hate to see pipes just thrown in, in fact I re failed one just on monday for that reason new copper pipe not clipped and rubbing on a raw panel edge !

 

[langy]

Sometimes we have no choice
The cost of replacing a pipe would out way the value of the vehicle
Manufacturers are putting more joints in to main pipes now
Not to make replacement easier but to speed up assembly I would imagine

The car can't be worth much then bud, the longest brake pipe on any car isn't gonna be anymore than a tenner max !!!

I know that some have joints in them for convenience but I prefer to keep joints to a minimum myself.