A trip back East to visit relatives kept work on the black Mirage from getting accomplished but I did get to do something that I've always wanted to do-- visit the Shiloh battlefield where my great- grandfather was wounded (and later wounded again at Missionary Ridge). The beauty of that place (Shiloh means "a place of peace"-- from the Bible) belies the human toll taken there on the 6th & 7th of April, 1862.
I've now done the plumbing for my front brakes and hooked up the remote reservoirs to the master cylinders. My first attempt at bending a hard line to the RF brake was simply junk. I thought about it and came up with a procedure to get the bends in the right place (and in the right direction!); the next attempts came out OK. The brake hard line is 3/16" steel tubing (the hydraulic clutch tubing is 1/4" steel), flared with a standard AN fitting 37 degrees. Using a decent flaring tool is important; mine is an Imperial- Eastman 437-FA. This is one place that a Harbor Freight tool is not a good choice.
My first tubing bender was a multi- size bender that did work OK but the problem was that it used the same large radius for bending every size tubing. A cheap Titan 51503 bender makes 1/8", 3/16", & 1/4" tubing with a smaller 7/8" radius bend. It costs about $20 on-line.
Interesting post in that I finally wised up and bought a proper tubing flare tool and bender from Eastwood. Economics at times prevents me from purchasing quality tools, but when I do, it ends up always being the better decision over numerous poorly made and ineffective tools.
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