The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline 1955.2 Disc Brake/master cylinder upgrade - Brake Lines

'55 Series 2, Short bed

Help I'm dead in the water!

I recently did the disc brake conversion and master cylinder relocation to the firewall but have not been able to find brake lines.

All the popular sites will sell you the conversion kit but no one seems to carry the hard lines.

Anyone know where I can get pre-bent lines?

Thanks,

Kilroy55

I doubt anyone sells pre-bent lines for non-factory brakes. You'll have to make your own. Copper tubing is easy to flare and bend.

I actually find it pretty satisfying to bend and flare my own lines. The nickel-copper stuff is super easy to work by hand. But even the plain old zinc coated steel in 3/16 isn’t bad.

I prefer to buy the straight sections with the tube nuts already on them. Even if you need to cut down and re-flare one end….its half the flaring. And buying the tube nuts separately gets spendy. The straight sections also look better, IMO.

Kilroy55, This Brake Line Kit seems to fit your requirements (Brothers Trucks is now a division of Holley). However the page info says "Estimated Ship Date: Coming Soon"??? You may want to reach out to the vendor to see if they know how long that may be.

The same kit is being offered through Summit Racing - Brothers Trucks DBBL59T, but their page says "Special Order" and " Estimated Ship Date: Nov 22, 2024".

As the other folks have said above, fabricating your own isn't that difficult with the nickel-copper prefab lines. Your ability and how soon you need them may be the driving factors in which way you go. Let us know how things turn out.

I would be careful about the Holley kit unless you used the Holley/Brothers pedal mount, booster, MC, and proportioning valve.

A different one of any of those will change where the lines need to route.

I did all the lines for my 58 in a long afternoon using Cunifer. I would really recommend just doing it yourself.

Thanks!

I also used Nickel Copper (CU) tubing on all of the brake, gas and vacuum lines. I suspect Cunifer is the same. Easy to flare and bend with the added benefit that it doesn’t corrode. I bought mine in 25’ lengths from Amazon. I also bought an assortment of fittings that came in a kit. Very reasonable. A little practice with a flaring tool and you’ll be an expert or at least ready to tackle your brake lines.

Do be careful buying CuNi tubing as there are cheap ones that advertise CuNi but instead are steel lines with a CuNi coating to keep them from corrosion but they will corrode from the inside and they are also harder to flare and bend. Genuine CuNi tubing is Copper Nickel all the way thru.

Yeah, Cunifer is the original name brand of Cu Ni tubing.

I bought the name brand because it was 10% more expensive than the no-name Amazon stuff and my friend who bought it from Amazon had really bad issues with it cracking.

I didn't know about the cuni coated steel, that might have been what he got and been the problem all along.

Cunifer sounds like it's got iron in it as well. Cu - Copper, Ni - Nickel, Fer - Ferrous or iron.

According to this it does contain a bit of iron (only 1.3%), but it's alloyed (mixed) with the copper and nickel, not a plated steel line.

I used CuNi lines for my truck, except for the larger line from the master cylinder to the first division block, where I used a coated steel line from my FLAPS.