Brake pipe flaring & bending tools

Something that becoming more common now as the R has reached its classic birthday is corroded brake lines.
Making new lines is something a lot of DIY owners find daunting mainly due to no specific tools or previous experience.
While probably not too expensive to get a workshop to do your lines or use a motor parts store to copy some lines, some people will prefer being able to do it in house & have ability to splice into existing steel lines with proper legal flared fittings.
Pipe is cheap in copper or the better Kunifer & pipe fittings as needed readily available.
Most expensive required tool is the flare jig, loads of options available but I will show a couple, one that I have (sealey PFT08 version2) & a cheaper 3/16 flare tool used by a few people & generally well spoken of. Good flare tool is really the only trick in making the job trouble free.
Sealey PFT08 is very versitile & has dies for various sizes & flares. compact size allows for use on vehicle for flaring steel line for joins. Quality of flares from this tool is great & it will cover most peoples possible needs, downside is price is about £75, is easy to use though and probably one of the best price to tool quality options.


Cheaper option at around £30 is this 3/16 handheld die & jig


Other useful tools will be pipe benders & general pipe pliers for basic shaping of pipes
Below are images of some useful and easily available pipe bending tools available almost anywhere & packaged under varying brands, black bending jig is probably about £15, basic pliers £8 & the forming jig pliers (blue handles) by kunzer are around £25 but do great bends.






all these tools are available from autofactors, hardware shops & online stores & eBay too.

Plenty of other capable tools as well so others who have recommendations or know a great buy can add to this topic.

Hmm that's a handy bit of kit

Awesome write up B. So do the pliers help with making those tighter bends where the radius of tube bender is going to be too large?

It does with smaller sizes & can do some tight but well formed bends as long as copper pipe, kunifer is a little harder.
You can get pipe bend jaw jigs that slip into jaw of adjustable spanner & work on same principle as the pliers but form a bit neater at slight expense of radius.
Can actually make your own from cheap adjustable spanner & machine, grind. file the curved groves in your pipe size .

Ah yeah, maybe the one in the spanner will work for me. I need to bend some 1/2 aluminium line up, front to back of car. So just working out what's going to give me the best result atm.

I bought one of these.

did the job but it dosnt grip the copper pipe very tight.
And if you try and flare the original pipes it cant do it.

Good bit of advice Mr B, I have never done brake lines myself but my brother has done many as a good bit of money to be saved over buying from the manufacturers.

Kit like stu posted is copper capable & that about it really on a good day.
for just copper & one off job it cheap solution but not good tool.
One like sealey makes job very easy & will cover most things you likely to do with vehicle brakes & that good that you would happily take on a few pipe jobs for people so it could recover the extra initial cost for some.
expect other brands have same as don't think it going be unique to sealey so you may find it cheaper than £75, sealey do a lot of December promotions at supporting autofactors so is possible it could be had on a promotion price.
I found nothing as versatile in pipe size handling, flare types & ability to handle steel flaring on vehicle for better price.
Expect a few people with have some good alternatives though.

nice one, need some of them pliers for doing bends. I have the sealey flare jig thing already and its a good bit of kit, especially for flaring the ends on the car, nice and easy to use too.

Yeah mine was bought to do one pipe and will never be used again. So cheap was perfect for the job

Did some searching and there doesn't seem to be heaps of options for tube benders. The main hand held ones are above unless you go to the bench style mounted ones from what I can gather

Couple more styles



The adjustable spanner style one is quite easy home machined to custom required sizes.
Good thing with hand pipe benders is they quite cheap so can buy couple you think likely work & have practice on pipe length & see how works out.

Heres another bender

Prick... Atleast my waight disapeard when I grew up... Whats your excuse Sue?

You can also use a socket or something of the correct radius mounted in a vice to bend the pipe around, easier if you make the pipe off of the car and copy the original, piece of cake really.

Stu wrote:Heres another bender

Stu wrote:I bought one of these.

did the job but it dosnt grip the copper pipe very tight.
And if you try and flare the original pipes it cant do it.

iv just brought one of these stu and about to buy pipe as i need to renew a section at the back of my car, couldt you put a new end on the exsisting pipe?? what did you need to do to sort it as i really dont want to remove all my fuel tank and run a new line down the car as that pipe is fine

^ well you could if pipe decent enough & still retains enough length.
you may struggle getting a good usable flare with that tool on standard steel lines though.

Dam ok, the pil
Or where I'm going to cut is fine as it's not been weathered but concerned now if I cut the pipe I won't be able to flare it and be in trouble

I didnt use this tool on a pulsar. I used it to make new brake pipe for a nova. The new copper pipe was soft enough to make new. But the old steel pipe was to hard to make a new nipple..

2 problems with those tools is they bit cumbersome to use when pipe on the car plus they slip when working on steel pipes if not lucky so flare not pressed right, assume few people have done a successful job with these on steel so you may too. The one for £30-£35 is about best for on & off vehicle flaring & handles steel well, it means spending another £20-£25 but it money well spent & makes job far easier/better/quicker .