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I'm doing a fair amount of work on the car right now and part of it involves installing new rebuilt calipers... My old stainless flexi brake lines look thrashed after 15 years and I picked up a new set- The fittings at the end of the hard brake lines are definitely knackered.. The soft metal has been rounded over & corroded and I'm actually surprised I got the flexible lines off.. Most of them seem to be fused the line, but I was able to rotate the stainless line and get it off..
Here's the question: The hard brake line is fine except for the fitting... The double flare seems to be in OK shape and it doesn't leak... I can put the new line on and tighten it up with a flare wrench, while holding the hard fitting with a vice grip.. Basically, I can get it back together and it'll work, but it's probably not the proper way to do things..
The other option is to cut off the end of the line, remove the abused fitting, put on a new 10mm x 1mm line fitting and double flare the end of the line with a flaring tool.. (I could also put on an entirely new brake line, but from what I understand getting it over the tranny is a difficult ordeal... )
I guess it's a question of style: is it best to do something correct though it has risks (new fitting, but the possibility that I can't get the new flare on the tube correctly in the tight space ) or is it best to get it back together quickly with little risks but knowing that it's not perfect and if I have to change it out again, I'm going to go through this whole thing with a frozen fitting..
The last photo shows the new brake line on the abused fitting and seems to be fine..
My view is if the attached fitting seats properly and holds pressure, the nut is not distorted from the vice grips and the steel line is clean and not corroded there is no safety or functional reason to replace the hex fitting simply because the hex is rounded off. On the other hand, having a clean looking install is always nice so from that perspective reflairing the steel tube with a new hex fitting would look cleaner. In the past, I have used a little clear nail polish on hydraulic fittings once installed to keep them bright and corrosion free and their threads protected. The nail polish just breaks away the next time one needs to crack open the fitting. Also,, it works great to seal the dust cap onto a caliper bleeder screw and also protects the bleeder screw threads as well.
Andy
Not sure how bad the corrosion is, but you may be lucky it's just surface. Get a fine wire wheel (make sure it's fine as the coarse one will score) and scrape off the oxidation to bright steel again with your rotary or drill. You may be lucky it's a good fitting after all. Had a lot of luck bring back some oxidized hardware on the exhaust and worked great.
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Axiological break fitting question.
