I wanted to replaced the rubber brake and clutch hoses with steel braided. The old ones looked original with cracks all over the outside rubber. Most of the flare nut fittings were seized and were rounding when using flare nut wrenches. In addition, I tried regular wrenches, vise grips, chisel/ hammer, and lots o' pb blaster. Nothing worked. Finally, tried a small pipe wrench. It worked great. The pipe wrench left some nicks on the flare nuts but not bad enough to prevent the use of a flare nut wrench to tighten. Hope this helps some one. Have a safe and prosperous New Year.

A propane torch works good here as well. Get the fitting hot and they should come right off.

I thought about using a torch. But was concerned about possible accidental collateral damage using a torch. I could see myself burning my car down to a pile of smothering ashes.

When it comes to flare wrenches, I prefer a quality tool... not the time to be using your Harbor Freight specials...

But yeah, get one of them blue bottle torches and give 'em a little heat...

Brake fluid is flammable !!!

I go w/ a snap on line wrench and definitely use the torch if they are seized. the torch is your friend for old rusty cars.

G'day.
If you can get it, WURTH ROST-OFF ICE on the flare nut and use vise-grip pliers to turn the flare nut. Good call with the plumbers wrench. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
No flames... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
Cheers
Ross

I ran into the exact same problem, rear brake... I soaked it with PB blaster for like 2 days. kept on spraying it. It eventually came loose. but, perseverance, and a gentle hand, to not round the edges off.

good luck! Just keep soaking it, and get some good fitting wrenches. you dont want slack.

This reminds me of a "funny" story once when we caught one of our race cars on fire. Hopefully someone will read this and learn from our mistake.

It's been 5 years so some of the details are a little foggy. We were finishing up putting a motor back in. We dropped the aluminum radiator in. While tightening the rad brackets a fire started near the firewall and flames were immediately over the roof of the car. I was working on a different car at the time and I saw my buddy running with a fire extinguisher. After a double take I realized that seeing a guy running with a fire extinguisher was probably not a good sign.

We put out the fire and breathed a sign of relief. About 10 seconds later the fire came back with fury. This happened about 5 times and we were still running around like crazy thinking WTF. Why does this fire keep coming back???!!!

We ultimately had to keep emptying fire extinguishers and a constant run of water on it. Eventually it stopped flaring up. Needless to say it was pretty scary, dangerous, and VERY VERY messy about about 5 fire extinguishers.

In the heat of the moment we could not figure out why the fire kept coming back... After a brief investigation, here is what happened:

We did not unhook the battery (located in the back). When we dropped in the radiator it crushed the main power cord and grounded it to the frame. It didn't blow the main fuse. Instead it fried the stainless steel clutch line near the firewall and ignited the fluid. The fire kept coming back until all the fluid was gone.

Obviously you should always unhook the battery. This was a mistake. However, the same thing would have happened if we unhooked it and then hooked it back up when we were finished. Hope this helps someone avoid a fire in the future!

I'm currently having an issue removing my fuel pump assembly. I'm on the "squirt it with PB Blaster everyday" mission.