- This is Kyle Smith with Hagerty.
Today I'm gonna walk you through how to flare
the hardlines for your classic car.
Here we have the tubing flaring tool itself.
And what you're looking at, there's only a couple
parts to deal with, and that is the overall piece itself,
a handle, and then there is four dies over
here for various tubing sizes.
Now we will be using a 3/16ths tube.
As you can see, this specific die is for a 3/16ths line.
One side is for the bubble flare, also known as ISO,
or DIN flare, and the other is for a double-inverted
45 degree flare, which is what we'll be doing today.
If you are going to flare your own brake lines, refer
to your owner's manual or a shop manual to ensure
that you're buying the proper size and specifications.
For this specific tutorial we will be
using a 3/16ths tubing to show the basic
process of flaring your own brake or fuel lines.
Another thing to look at is the actual dies themself.
Now this is a little bit more of a leverage type tool
compared to a clamp type where you're going
to select your dies that you need as you need them.
This has a head that rotates around,
makes it a little bit quicker, cleaner to use in the shop.
Each die is specific here on the ends
to the tubing size that you're going to be using.
Now, it's shaped for the inside of the tube,
and then is also cut for the flare
on the outside that you'll be creating.
So you have these three here for various sizes
of creating a bubble flare, then here on the end
is what actually inverts that flare to create
the double-inverted 45 degree flare that
we're going to be creating today.
And then here are the same bubble flare dies as well as
to create the inverted for a larger 5/16ths and 3/8ths line.
The next two go a little bit hand-in-hand,
and that is the tubing cutter that we're working with.
And this is the same, does look familiar
if you've done home-improvement projects around
your home, this is the same thing that plumbers use.
These are just a little bit smaller for automotive use.
It allows you to use it possibly on the car, and allows
use all the way down to that quarter-inch tubing size.
So to partner with that tubing cutter is the tubing reamer.
So this right here is going to be used
to clean out the inside of that freshly cut tube
to ensure there's no burrs or sharp edges
that are going to interfere with the flare.
So to start with flaring your hardline,
be that brake line or a fuel line,
you're going to need one specific tool,
and that is your flaring tool.
There's multiple types of flaring tools available,
this is the on I typically recommend.
Especially if you're doing multiple tube flares
in a session, or at least multiple times per year.
Something like this has a lever that compresses
each of these dies into the tubing, which is clamped here
on the side, and we'll walk through just
exactly how to operate it right now.
So what you're starting with on a project like this
is just some standard straight stock of a fuel line.
Something like this is going to come pre-flared
on both ends, and the fitting's already installed.
So you're only going to need to cut one end
and flare to fit your project.
So with your hardline selected, what you're going
to do is have to cut it down to size.
Now on this one, you'll want to measure out
on your project, sometimes that involves bending
a coat hanger to figure out exactly what length you need,
and then stretching it out to straight,
or if it's even just a straight line that you're
going end-to-end, measuring it with a tape measure.
For the sake of this example, I'll just be cutting
it right about here, as I don't have a specific
project in mind when I'm bending this.
So to start with using a tubing cutter,
you'll set the line inside of it, and then tighten
it down until the cutting wheel makes contact
with the hardline that you're bending.
So we'll bring that in just close there,
and just to snug, and then what we'll do is
spin that around a couple times
until it's loose again and free-spinning.
And then tighten it again, and I usually do a quarter
to a half a turn at a time, so it's not a significant
increase in pressure, and that just makes sure
that you're not deforming the tube as you tighten that down.
Because you wanna make sure that
it stays in a nice round shape.
Always feels like it takes a little
bit longer than it needs to.
So there you have the cut end, and you can see that
I haven't deformed how round the tube is.
So still nice and round, so you can see here on the inside
of this tubing, there's just a few small burrs
and a little bit of metal left over
that the cutter had pushed into the interior of the tube,
and that's where our reamer comes into play.
Now what this does, is that's going to remove
all of those bits of metal left over
and leave us with a smooth surface, so when we
flare we're not moving any metal around
or creating any hot spots of metal.
The reamer's pretty simple to use, you just
insert that into the tube, and rotate it around a few times.
You don't wanna remove too much metal, so you
just wanna give it a couple spins, and you can see there
it cleans it up and makes sure that you
don't have any extra metal in there.
After you clean off all the burrs and metal shavings,
make sure to blow out the line to remove any debris.
So our first step in dealing with our tubing flaring tool
is actually not even involving the tool,
and this is the one that I often forget,
especially if I'm a little bit out of practice.
And that is, whatever piece you're about to mount in there,
needs to have the fitting on it first.
The first time you flare, you will forget this
and you'll have to cut your beautiful flare off
and put that piece back on, so make sure you
slide it on the piece that you're doing right now.
With that in mind, set it off to
the side, and we'll open up the vice.
So the first thing we're going to wanna do is actually
place the tubing in the two dies that we're working with.
Now these are tubing size specific,
and you can see that it has a channel
for the tubing to lay into, and then also
a small flare here on the end for the press
and the dies to punch up against.
So in loading this into the dies,
what I like to do is leave it just little bit past the die,
and then place the top piece on.
I'll hold it here at the back.
And then what I'll do is lightly clamp it in place.
So I'll back that off just a little bit,
you can see this is still loose,
I'm still able to move the line back and forth.
And then, this has the position zero on it,
and what that is, is that's flat on the front.
When I bring this in, it's gonna push the line back
right up until it's flush with the end of theses dies,
and that's exactly where it needs to be
so we get an accurate flare every time.
Our next step is just to go ahead and clamp this down.
Nice and tight, and then we're ready to flare.
So now that we've got the dies lined up
and the tubing in the correct spot,
we're gonna go ahead and rotate our dies
to position number one for the 3/16th line that we're using.
This is going to start the flare for us
and is just the first of two steps.
Go ahead an swing this through, and pull it
all the way down, and then the next step here is the second.
And we'll go ahead and pull that one in.
And then we can take it out.
Split our dies, and there you can see
what is considered a 45 degree double-inverted flare.
And now you can see how nicely it fits
here in the end of the fitting.
And that would be the actual sealing surface.
Now it is something to keep in mind, this is
something I often see on classic cars,
or something that might have a fuel leak,
or sometimes even a leak at a wheel cylinder.
A lot of people come through and put pipe dope
or plumber's tape or teflon tape on the threads of this
fitting in an effort to seal up that leaky fitting.
That's not what's actually sealing that fitting.
These threads should not function as a seal.
This actual flare is the seal that you're working with.
So coming through and working on these threads
and trying to seal that up is only a band-aid
to the actual problem that is a bad flare.
So if you're having problems with a flared fitting,
if it's not sealing properly, you need to look at the flare,
make sure it's clean and fresh, and also
the fitting that it's threading into.
And there you have a double flare
with the fitting ready to seal off that brake
or fuel system in your classic car.