Classic Tube Brake Line Kits. OE or Stainless?

[DC871F]

59 minutes ago, foosman said:

I put a set of the Classic Tube OE steel lines (minus the fuel vent line - I reused my OE one) in my 5/71 about a year ago.  Overall, I'm happy with the kit but several of the lines needed some adjustment to fit correctly.  They weren't exact matches to the originals, but it's hard to say whether my originals hadn't been "adjusted" by a PO.  In particular, the clutch master cylinder line was way different from my original, and the several of the bends in the firewall area needed to be adjusted to match the insulators and the spacing/angles of the other lines in the 3-gang and 4-gang insulators.  The OE steel lines are easy to rework as needed - I adjusted mine by hand, and they came out good enough for me.  Still on the fence about investing in the tooling to rework the bend on the top line on the driver-side firewall so it's a bit smoother.

On a related note, if you decide to replace the insulators and brackets, the set I used is from Zcar Depot.  It's ok, but the set I received had a few shortcomings to be aware of.  The fuel return line hole in the tranny tunnel insulators is way too big for the small OE fuel return line.  The 3D-printed blocks are stiffer, so they will require more effort to install, and are visually different than the OE rubber for those who care.  Also, the kit came with an incorrect "short" bracket for the fuel vent line (the long single-line bracket on the driver-side firewall), so I cleaned and reused my OE clamp.  The urethane block for that clamp is sized for the smaller diameter brake line, not the larger diameter vent line, so I reamed out the block as best I could.  I'm not building a 100-point car, and it was quite a bit cheaper than the same set from 240zrubberparts.com, but that set looks like it avoids all the shortcomings of this one.  If I had to do it again, I'd apologize to my wallet and go with 240zrubberparts.com.

Wow, almost $500 for both sets of clips and rubbers from 240zrubber.

I knew I was in the wrong business.