Rusty brake line fittings!! Help!!

[Nathaniel Preston]

I am trying to remove brake cylinders from the rear drum brakes on a 2005 corolla. Up in north Ontario Canada. This car sees 6+ months of salt and slush per year. Anyways started with cheap line wrenches and fittings are Now a bit damaged at the cylinder. I have read conflicting posts about the use of heat on brake lines. I have a feeling that due to inexperience I will probably damage the flare nuts and will most likely have to replace the sections between the flex hose and the brake drum cylinder. I noticed this short portion has some sort of sheath on part of it. What is this?? Should this small portion be replaced with normal steel line or stainless?? I’ve been spraying the nuts at both the cylinders and where it meets the flex hose with liquid wrench and deep creep. Not getting anywhere. Havnt tried heat yet. Any suggestions???

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[Will Parker]

Ok a couple tricks…well first I HAVE to ask are you using flare nut wrenches or crow’s feet? Because normal creacent wrenches just round off line fittings.
That out the way, a little heat can help ive also tried another trick using canned air. Turn it upside down shake the hell out of it and spray while upside down and it acts to freeze the metal a little bit. Sometimes that works alone or used after using heat. Just be careful wear safety glasses. I live in NH so deal with a lot of the same issues and the question I often ask myself it- will trying to save this rusty line cost me more time and aggravation than just getting it off and replacing with a new one? Seems either way youll have to do a bleed on the system, most go for stainless but really stainless rusts as well just not quite as fast. SO if you can’t get it off, takes too long etc, cut the line so you can get an extractor socket over it, tap it on and itll come off pretty quick. Its a small section of line and if you are replacing the drum cylinder and all that its really is easier to replace the aging lines around it. Just be sure to bleed properly. Did brakes on my brother’s dodge where someone wrenched off most of a bleeder nipple so they just didn’t bother doing that 1. Caused a bubble in the line allowing moisture to collect and it rusted from the inside blew out in my driveway. The nipple was so bad even with extractor sockets and drilling and easy outs, heat all of it, just wouldn’t budge so had to replace the caliper. While I was at it I replaced all of his rear brake lines as well.
If you are really set on trying to save the tired old lines try the heat and freeze trick just b sure to use flare nut wrenches. If it won’t come off that way (even if you are using vise grips at that point) then get a good set of extractor sockets (Amazon about 25 bucks or so) and that WILL get it off.

[Nathaniel Preston]

Hi Will, thanks for the Reply.. I am using line wrenches, however the wrench I used initally was pretty cheap.. I have since upgraded to what I am hoping is a higher quality line wrench.. I tried the new wrench the other evening but it feels like it is still slipping.. I think the first line wrench did the damage.. It may have to come out with vise grips and if thats the case, I’ll probably have to replace this short section of brake line.. I saw a video ETCG did where he turned the cylinder off the fitting rather than trying to turn the fitting.. But that looks like it requires removing the shoes. He also had another video where he expaneded the shoes out to get the cylinder out thereby leaving the shoes and springs intact.. this is what I was hoping to do.. As for this short line.. it looks like it has a bit of a sheath on part of it.. but not the whole length.. do you know what that is? is this something unique to this section of brake line that I need to know about??

[Will Parker]

I haven’t ever come across a vehicle with a sheath on a brake line near a drum or caliper. It might be a factory thing or could be something someone put on there. Does it move at all? Slide up and down or is it fused to the line? If it’s stuck then just take it off with the old line and forget about it. If it moves and you feel you wanna try and reuse it then slide it off once you get the fitting off and out it over the new one. Now as I said if the heat and cold trick with canned air (be sure to hold the can upside down and if possible use the red straw) then best bet is cut the line to get it off.ruining the fitting isn’t the end all be all you can, if you have the tools and enough line left you could re-flare it with a double glare tool AFTER sliding a new nut onto the tube. Youll most likely have to do this with a new piece anyway although some do come with it on there and already flared so uts a matter of screwing it in and connecting to the rubber portion. As for the tool for flare nuts….ive found using a combo of wrenches as well as crow’s feet that work with a ratchet to be helpful. You gotta be sure you are putting pressure straight on though and you are most likely right the damage has already been done so vise grips. Don’t be afraid to crank em down as the fitting is toast.

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