This afternoon I removed the hard brake line that feeds brake fluid to the rear brakes. The brake line was composed of three sections: a front section that curved upwards into the engine bay; a straight middle section that ran from the front through the "X" cross brace of the frame; and a rear section that ran up over the rear axle to a soft rubber line.
I began by removing the front section of brake line from the mid-section. I used a 7/16" wrench and a 9/16" wrench to unbolt the coupling that held the two lines together. The midsection of the brake line ran the length of the frame, just inside the main frame member on the passenger's side of the car.
The middle section was held to the frame by several clips, which could be bent down to free the line, and terminated at the beginning of the rear section of the brake line.
I removed the mid-section from the rear section of the brake line where they met through a bracket welded to the frame. To remove the coupling that held the mid-section to the rear section I used a 3/4" wrench to hold the coupling and a 7/16" wrench to loosen it.
The middle section went through the frame in some very narrow spaces between the main frame front-to-back member and the X brace. The gap between these was so small that it was impossible to pull the middle brake line section out due to the size of the couplings on either end of the line. So I resorted to cutting the middle section in order to pull it free. I will be fabricating a new middle section of brake line at a minimum.
The other end of the rear section connected to a soft line that fed brake fluid down to a splitter mounted on the differential. I freed the front of the rear section from the frame bracket by removing the clip that held the coupling to the bracket. The rear end of the rear section I had removed from the soft line several weeks earlier, in preparation for removing the body from the frame (in retrospect that was not necessary at that time).
With the front and rear of the rear brake line section free I just pulled it through the grommet in the frame to get that section of line off the frame.
I then removed the top of the soft brake line (the one that the rear section of hard line was previously connected to) by removing the clip and bracket that held it to small metal bracket welded to the frame. These pieces I just removed by prying with a screwdriver.
This enabled me to remove the top section of the soft (rubber) rear brake line.
The bottom of the soft line connected into a splitter that fed brake fluid to the drum brakes on either of the rear wheels. I disconnected both of the outbound hard lines from the two sides of the splitter, using a 7/16" wrench.
Next I removed the bolt that mounted the splitter into the differential, using a 1/2" socket.
The hard lines that went to each of the brake cylinders on the rear wheels were held in place with some more clips.
Those lines then connected to the rear brakes via some 7/16" couplings, which I left connected for the time being.
I will leave those remaining hard brake lines in place on the rear axle, which I will remove all in one piece.
