Banjo bolt sealing- anyone have any good tricks?

You can either let it cool naturally or cool by quenching copper to anneal it according to the interweb

 

I installed new washers that are thicker by .020" and torqued to 22 ft/lbs. They're holding so far.

If they spring a leak again, I'll anneal them.

 

I had a caliper like that, it was a rebuilt and no matter what I did I could not get it to seal. Finally returned it and got another one and all was fine. I think the threaded hole for the banjo bolt was not at a right angle to the mating surface of the brake line brass piece.

 

I have silver soldered 2 washers together on problem calipers then installed and no leaks.

 

It seems to me that all the copper washers we get now-a-days are harder than when parts were made here.

I always anneal any copper washer before use (even the one for the studs on my 9" axle) and haven't had any more trouble with leaks.

 

Well, one of them is still leaking just a bit. I suspect these washers are just regular copper; a copper crush washer is likely softer. I would just anneal these and try again, but they're the wrong size. ID is fine, but the OD is much too wide.

I ordered some 7/16" copper crush washers from McMaster-Carr. I'll try these next.

Thanks

 

Rock Auto has bags of the annealed washers pretty che ap. Shipping kills yo u if you don’t buy something els from the same warehouse, though.

Sounds like the copper seal ring was riding in the bolt under head radius or the spot face radius on the cylinder body.

 

Acquired a reman caliper and after installing banjo to specified torque, it leaked. Tried tightening, leaked. No success.

Removed the bolt, inspected the caliper mate surface, and it was powder coated/painted. It should have been machined, clean metal, preferably with a circular ring pattern for machining lines. No, it was a rounded, rough, bumpy surface. Went back to store and all parts were same. Tried another store, different brand, and similar but better, but no clean metal. The dealer part and the stock part are both clean metal, so went with keeping the stock part and trying new caliper pins. Still leaking banjo, but will try new washers and very light torque to start all over again.

 

You can quench copper alloys after heating and they will still be annealed. Steel is the only metal that hardens with quenching. The only way to harden copper is work hardening.