Brake pipes and double flaring

As part of the IVA test, all brake lines / fuel lines including hoses must be securely mounted to the chassis. I will be using the below, these are clips which have a collar which when pushed into a 6mm hole, flares out on the other side of the hole, holding the pipe line secure.

To get a professional finish and better pedal feel. I will be using Kunifer pipe throughout the car's main body for the Brake lines and clutch and using braided hose to attach to the callipers and the clutch cylinder. Kunifer pipe should ideally be used instead of standard copper, Kunifer pipe is slightly different to copper and has better corrosion and fatigue properties to just copper alone.

One of the problems when buying some pipe is that it comes coiled up so unwinding by hand can leave you with no perfectly straight piece of pipe. The easiest solution for this is a bit of 4x2 and to drill a hole that is slightly wider than the pipe. In this case a 5/6mm hole for 3/16 pipe (A good mix of metric and imperial there!). Pass the pipe through it and this will make the pipe straight and give a good look finish.

Brake lines require flaring for unions and the joining to hoses. so my flaring kit and some pipe arrived so I decided to give it a go. This was my first ever flare, so it can only get better from here with some practice.

First of all cut your pipe with a cutting tool, this is the easiest tool to use and will give the best cut, it will also leave only a little de-burring to do.

Once you have cut the piece you want, you need to clamp it in the flaring tool, with a piece sticking out above. The amount sticking out will depend on diameter of the tool and it should be the length of the base of the first flaring piece as shown below.

You now need to turn the piece over and place the thin end inside the pipe and put the clamp on ready making sure everything is lined up.

You now need to tighten the tool ensuring the flaring tool is squashing in an even fashion across the tube or the flare will be poor. this should be done so that no copper pipe can be seen between the clamp and the flaring piece, then undo the flaring tool, leaving the piece in the clamp and you'll be left with the below;

Following this you now just redo the flare again with the clamp and tool itself (shown above) but this time be careful not to go to far, this should not be squashed flat but be done firm. This will leave you with a flare like the below;

This was the first ever flare I've done so they will get better with more practice but for a first go to understand the principle it was good enough.

TIPS
* Make sure you de-burr the pipe before flaring
* Use a little bit of brake fluid on the piece so that the flare tool doesn't grip and creates the flare smoothly and hopefully produced a better flare.