Today I started the less than exciting installation of fuel and brake lines. After doing a bunch of research on what material to use, there were basically 3 choices for hardline tubing. Most cars come stock with steel lines, 3/16" for brake lines and 3/8" for fuel. They're inexpensive, and not too difficult to bend and flare, but they are prone to rust. To prevent rust, people woud upgrade to stainless steel lines, which are a little more expensive, but are difficult to bend and flare. Lately, the best choice has moved up to cunifer tubing which is 90% copper/ 10% nickel. It's even a little more expensive than stainless, won't corrode, but is much easier to bend and flare. Modern high end cars have all moved over to cunifer, so it seemed the obvious choice.

     Next, I found out there were all kinds of flares to deal with. The Corvette parts are all metric and use the "bubble" flare. The master cylinder and proportioning valve are SAE and use regular double flare 45 degrees. There are also a couple of AN-3 fittings that use single flare and bushing 37 degrees. The fuel lines are all AN-6 single flare 37 degrees. All the fittings for brakes are steel, though I do have one brass tee that I may use. The fuel line fittings are all aluminum.

    I did find a brake flaring tool kit on Amazon that will do all three types of flare and also includes a tubing cutter and reamer. It's an OTC 6502 and seems to work very well so far. The copper/nickel tubing bends fairly easily with a tubing bender. My tubing bender is fairly large to handle the 3/8" tubing so it doesn't do close in bends very well. It will work for the fuel lines, but I ordered a mini-tubing bender for the brake lines.

     I mounted the Corvette fuel filter/regulator on the frame rail behind the differential. This unit has an inlet and a return that connects to the fuel pump and a single outlet at 58 psi that runs up to the engine. I started to bend the inlet line to the filter, but with the recessed fuel pump, I was having trouble connecting. I ordered a couple of 1/4" NPT to AN-6 45 degree fittings to replace the straight ones currently on the fuel pump. Hopefully, this will make the hookup easier.

     I was able to route the fuel filter outlet line about halfway up the frame to the transmission crossmember. I did need to pass the line through the rear crossmember which meant I needed to drill a 7/8" hole through the 2"x6" crossmember. It took a little time, but air tools are great! I need to find a grommet for the hole. Tomorrow, I will need to decide where to put the clamps and drill the appropriate holes. The plan is to drill the holes for rivnuts but to wait until after powder coat to install them.

     I also started with a rear brake line fitting, It's a feed through fitting that mounts to the same rear crossmember with an AN-3 fitting on one side and a NPT on the other. The NPT fitting gives a place to mount a tee fitting to route the line to each of the rear brakes. I have a design in mind, but I'm waiting for some 3/16 spring to come in so I can put it over the brake lines where they are exposed to edges. I also need to figure out where the frame hose mounts need to go. I have the mounts, and I was looking for a good way to attach them to the frame, but with rectangular tubing you can't get to the other side to put on the nut. I could do rivnuts, but I think I'm overthinking it and it would be just easier to weld the on. So that's the plan. It will give me a chance to try out my new MIG welder.

     I bought some Russell stainless braided flexible hoses for the rear, and I needed to reinstall the rear calipers to verify the flex hose routing and decide where to weld on the mounts. In the rear, I stayed with the C4 calipers and rotors since they are almost the same size as the C5 (11.8" vs 12", both are single piston) Changing to C5 also messes up the emergency brake, and I don't need to mess with that.

      The front is more difficult as I am upgrading the calipers and rotors to the C5 13" rotors and dual piston calipers. So I need to use C5 flex hoses in the front. The pickup frame is a little narrower than the Corvette in the front, so the stock C5 flex hoses are a little too short. Once I decide where to weld on the hose mounts to the frame, I can measure the hose length and order some custom length hoses.

     So far, things are progressing nicely, though maybe at a little slower pace than I expected. Darrell from Rockabilly Fabrication called today and he's sending me the lower mounts for the both the front and rear coilovers. He's still working on the updated design for the front sway bar links. No big rush, I'm a long way from needing them.