I'm in the middle of doing some maintenance on my JK and while lifting up the driver side of the rear axle, my hard brake line broke just above the nut. How do I fix this?

 

Show that pic to the guy at Autozone or whatever store I'd close to you. You should be able to cut it off with pipe cutter and with a brake line flare tool re-flare the end. But they should be able to show you what you need.

 

Buy a brake line flaring tool. Disconnect the nut on the broken half of the line. Throw away the short broken piece of line, slide on the nut onto the remaining good line, using a tubing cutting tool, cut a clean flat cut on the tip if the good line, then lastly, flare the good line with the flaring tool. Then slide the nut down, to connect back with the fitting again and tighten it down. Hopefully thats not confusing.

Then bleed brakes.

 

Brake lines are normally "double flared" - Make sure you buy the correct flaring device and read the instructions if you are not familiar with flaring tubing. Most automotive stores have pre-made brake lines in various lengths. You can measure yours and purchase a pre-made line and install it via bending it to fit.

 

Thanks for the help, everyone. I think I have tools I need now, but I ran out of daylight and will have to continue in the morning. I'm gonna look into that pre-made brake line option, because the one I have is so bent up already by the guy who installed my first lift for me, and that's the root cause of this line eventually breaking. That guy made so many other errors. I didn't have all the tools at the time so I opted to pay a shop to install it for me. Big mistake. I ended up correcting a bunch of his errors.

 

So any ideas how to get the flaring bar to grab onto the brake line tube tight enough so that when tightening the press, the tube doesn't just get pushed back. This tube ain't flaring.

 

You might try filing a little bit of the flaring bar down so it pinches the line better. It's a common problem with some of the less expensive flaring tools.

 

Ah, it's a rented (borrowed for free actually from AutoZone) tool though. I'll have to think of something else. Doesn't make sense to buy a $200-300 professional flaring tool. Last resort is I'll just buy a whole new line from the dealer. Thanks for the help.

 

Success!! Thank you all again for all your help. This has been a learning experience for me.

It appears that the flaring bar that came in the double flaring kit that I borrowed from AutoZone was too worn out, and that's why it wasn't grabbing onto the tube tight enough. I bought a cheaper single flaring kit and used the flaring bar from the new kit with the double flaring pieces from the loaner kit. I tightened the new flaring bar as tight as I could around the tube, and still had room for more tightening. While attempting a double flare, the tube still kept slipping out of grip. After several attempts, I decided to try just a single flare. The single flare worked on the first attempt. I screwed the line back in and no leaks. I bled the line, topped off the brake fluid, and took it for a test drive, and so far no signs of leaking. Looks like a single flare is good enough for the brake lines, and come to think of it, when I took out the broken piece, it looked like the stock setup only had a single flare as well.

 

whats the difference?

i'm in the middle of the project now--

thanks
steve