Shortening brake lines?
 

I'm scrapping some chassis and wondering if the brake lines are worth keeping. Can you shorten brake lines by cutting, flaring and putting in a brass junction? Heck of a lot cheaper to reuse perfectly good parts than to be continually buying new stuff. And you know it's going to fit

Re: Shortening brake lines?
 

I've done it.

Re: Shortening brake lines?
 

The problem with brake lines is they rust from the inside too. Brake fluid absorbs moisture from the air until saturated and over time it drops out and the steel factory lines began rusting. That one reason why it is recommended that brake fluid is replaced regularly. So old lines may be fine until that time you really hammer the brakes and that rusted spot you can't see fails.

Re: Shortening brake lines?
 

I know someone who was stubborn and didn’t want to replace brake lines. They repaired the rear line twice, with compression couplers (cringe), before finally replacing it. Then when one of the front lines failed they did the same compression coupler repair until it failed in another spot and they replaced both front lines and the hoses. I don’t know how but thankfully there were no incidents to go along with all these failures.

Re: Shortening brake lines?
 

You can do it, but it's really not worth it - several good reasons listed already. But, for me, it's just one more place to leak, and my brakes always seem to leak, so I'd rather not add one more just to save a few bucks on new lines when I need em. What old brake lines ARE good for is as a practice line when bending your own, especially when replicating some complex bends - so they might be worth hangin onto.

Re: Shortening brake lines?
 

Sounds like they aren’t worth saving then. I’ll just leave em attached to the chassis for the scrapper.