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MG TD TF 1500 - Brake line flares

A question for all the experts out there. I have just bought a set of new brake lines in cupro nickel. They have a bubble flare at the ends. On dismantling my brakes I have found all the pipes (which are steel) to have a double flare. All the brass fittings look original (the three way unions have the designation 21993/4 EW cast onto them and the four way union has the designation 24373 EW) and appear to be designed for double flares. The new flexible rubber pipes which I have bought from Brown and Gammons also appear to be designed for a double flare. I am confused! What type of flare should a TD (or TF) have in its brake pipes? Has someone changed all the components in my car? Matt
Matt Davis

a bubble flare? what is a bubble flare? do you mean like the bead formed by a parker beading tool? like you would use when connecting a hose to a tube? regards, tom
tom peterson

Matt,
What would worry me is not the bubble flare, but will the nuts fit into the fittings. Inspect them carefully/ see if they thread in. You can always whack the ends off, install the correct nuts and reflare the tubing.

The fact that you have bubble flares means you can finish the double flare with no problem. Find a flaring tool and generate the inverted flare (the second flare of the double).

When I put MGB discs & rear end on our TD with the British stainless braided hoses (along with dual circuit master cylinder and proportioning valve), I recall having to a mix of British and SAE inverted flared, bubble flared and JIC/SAE flared joints on the brakes, with 3/16" to 9/16" nuts.

Also have SAE flared fittings on the engine.

Jim Northrup

a quick youtube instructional video and now i not only know what a bubble flare is..but i know how to replicate one using a regular double flaring tool. i'm glad the question was posed. regards, tom
tom peterson

I think I've answered my own question. This article: http://ttypes.org/ttt2/replacing-t-type-brake-pipes in Totally T Type 2 states that all T types have double flares at the ends of the brake pipes. Is this what others have found?

I'm going back to the supplier to see if I can get the pipes changed, I do not have a flaring tool, so cannot finish the job myself. Matt
Matt Davis

Good news, supplier is taking the pipes back to add the necessary double flare. Putting them in will have to wait a few weeks, its off to the ski slopes next week! Matt
Matt Davis

Matt, you are correct the TD/TF have double flares on all brake lines. The MGA and MGB have the single bubble flare. I discovered this when I installed MGB front discs on my TF and had to fabricate my own brake lines with a double flare at the 3 way union and a bubble flare at the other end.

Andy
Andrew Preston

Jim:
You make it sound easy...and it is if you have the skilkl. But I can tell you that it takes a bunch more practice than I've ever been able to accummulate to do a decent flare in steel or even cupro-nickel tubing.
I finally gave up and paid somebody to do it.

If I had known Jim Northrup was just down the road from me, I woulkd have asked very nicely... ;-)
Cheers!
John Deikis
---------------
Doing the Rallye to Reno in June!
www.kidsCURE.blogspot.com
Deikis

This thread was discussed between 28/02/2011 and 11/03/2011

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