Mechanical Noise
Well-known member
For 10mm, I've been using a Crescent flare nut wrench. It's made in China but I think it's quite good. The fit is good and there's an adequate amount of steel at the wrench end. It's certainly better than my Craftsman raised panel flare nut wrench and is probably at least as good as my AWOL SK flare nut wrench. It came in a set of 3 and I haven't used the others so I can't speak to the quality of the others in use, but again, the wrench ends seem beefy enough.
These Crescent flare nut wrenches look identical to the current Craftsman Pro wrenches as well as a few others out there, for whatever that's worth.
I don't get very enthusiastic about the possibility of removing crappy old flare nuts without further damage. If the nut is all rusty, it's likely the brake line isn't much better. Might as well grab the vice grips or the chisel and six pointer and replace the whole line. Such is life in the rust belt.
As far as installation goes, pretty much any flare nut wrench on a good nut should be OK. Open end wrenches are more problematical because they're more likely to distort the flare end of the nut from round to oval under high torque, which might lead to later leaks.
If you're curious, Kelsey-Hayes had the patent for off corner engagement. The text mentions the problem with fluid fittings:
It is found that when conventional wrenches are used for tightening fittings, such for example as those used in fluid lines, they not infrequently distort them, actually extruding and bending the metal into an oveal shape, resulting in leakage. Such distortion of the fitting during tightening also produces erroneous torque readings because the excess friction resulting from binding and crushing increases the torque by as much as seventy-five percent.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US3125910
These Crescent flare nut wrenches look identical to the current Craftsman Pro wrenches as well as a few others out there, for whatever that's worth.
I don't get very enthusiastic about the possibility of removing crappy old flare nuts without further damage. If the nut is all rusty, it's likely the brake line isn't much better. Might as well grab the vice grips or the chisel and six pointer and replace the whole line. Such is life in the rust belt.
As far as installation goes, pretty much any flare nut wrench on a good nut should be OK. Open end wrenches are more problematical because they're more likely to distort the flare end of the nut from round to oval under high torque, which might lead to later leaks.
If you're curious, Kelsey-Hayes had the patent for off corner engagement. The text mentions the problem with fluid fittings:
It is found that when conventional wrenches are used for tightening fittings, such for example as those used in fluid lines, they not infrequently distort them, actually extruding and bending the metal into an oveal shape, resulting in leakage. Such distortion of the fitting during tightening also produces erroneous torque readings because the excess friction resulting from binding and crushing increases the torque by as much as seventy-five percent.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US3125910