DK it's always been a southern car originally titled in Atlanta at Nalley Honda back in 86, She's never lived more then 500 miles from there. Driven cross country numerous times, a few at high speed at night, but always called the South home. It's was the highest torque engine they had made in the history of the model, but it also has that heavy iron block, so hard to tell how good it will be. I have seen videos of guys throwing them around on the ice and they did pretty well.
HA! being a packrat has it's advantages, found an entire bundle of 36 inch long pieces of seamless stainless in my junk, I had saved them from the scrap metal at work, just the right size to make lines and fittings for -6 ends. I had forgotten all about it, stainless polishes up PURDY with red scotchbrite.
Hey while on this subject of hoses, anyone know where to get the rubber hose that has the braided cloth over it? regular hose not AN, see where the clear vacuum hose is going to the booster? , that's just for mockup, I would never put that on my car, but the car originally has the hose with the cloth braid, and i think that's the only thing that would look right. One of the few places I can't put AN Been out here playing with AN stuff all night. I have the fun toys.
Oh that rubber piece of fuel line and filter will go to, car has the fuel lines that run factory INSIDE of the car under the trim, so I'll be bending a pretty complex piece of line from under the dash all the way to the back of the car. any suggestions on not flattening the bend even with a good tubing bender?
Just my opinion, however I have been using stainless JIC components and stainless coated teflon lines for years. About 30-50% the cost of AN fittings, come in stainless, wont mar or rust. Plus I get the hoses custom made by the hydraulic guy by simply giving him the lengths and sizes I need. Having been a hydraulics engineer for many years put me in this mind set. For my Twin Turbo Northstar, I am going with hard tube where I can (pulling in a favor from a vendor). For custom fittings, there are a few vendors that I have used, however I also have access to CNC equipment. In the past 8 years, I only needed one special fitting where I could not find a catalog solution. For standard hose bead connections, a simple hose clamp from Breeze (non perforated type or liner type) work extremely well and wont cut the hose. http://www.normagroup.com/kunden/norma/ttw.nsf/id/EN_Breeze On the hundreds of thousands of diesel engines at my last job, we only used the constant torque lined clamps on glycol connections and constant torque T-bolt clamps on the air connections. Its amazing that a few $ spent on a clamp will completely eliminate all warranty related costs associated with hose joint failures. either way, AN fittings, JIC fittings, etc. it is ultimately the choice of the individual as far as direction. Do I believe the colors are gaudy, Yes. Are there choices, Yes. Do you need to spend a fortune with Earls, Jegs, etc., No
Earl's used to carry it and probably still does. You can also get it at oil field supply houses, farm or tractor stores and at hydraulic specialty houses where you can also find the JIC fittings. I've seen it in sky blue, flat black and gloss black. The line I had trouble with - noted above, was flat black, never had any trouble with the gloss black or sky blue. Earl's used to carry the plastic braided line in black, blue and red. I believe the red has been discontinued. Earl's also carries black and blue rubber lines that work quite well as fuel or oil lines. You can use a push-on barbed fitting on these - make sure you use the end ferrule. You can also crimp the end ferrule with a tool they sell. You can make your own tool by getting a tubing cutter and taking the sharp edge off the cutting wheel so that it has a flat edge. The tool is a good safety feature if you use the rubber stuff on an oil system. The line is good for 250# working load and just for the heck of it I ran it without crimping the ferrules on a remote oil filter install so I could see how it did. No problems with the connection in the four years I owned the car.
Chopolds turned me on to Swagelok fittings. They're stainless steel, polish up in a snap, are easier than hell to work with, and are good for about 3000 psi. They're not cheap, but if you're plumbing with all hard lines, they look and work great. Of all the things to bitch about on people's cars, bitching about AN fittings doesn't make sense. At least someone took the time and money to use a good fitting rather than some crap they pillaged from the Help! section at Pep Boys.
That's a good idea. Most of the aluminum guys in my neck of the woods are running 360/410 Sprints and A/B Mods. They are hooked on the aluminum pushlock fittings and AQP textile braid hose, both because they work and the whole system is really light. For my car that's good enough. It is holding up amazingly well, beats the hell out of rusty steel lines and worm clamps. Don't even get me talking on rubber fuel line hose, the stuff nowadays is garbage. But I have used the JIC and hydraulic hose/fitting protocol on diesel stuff. The last 5.9 Cummins we did made over 700 hp at the wheels with a Bi-Turbo setup. I made all of the lines, and that is pressure there. It has to be right. I forget what we ended up spending just on lines and hardware, but it wasn't cheap and it wasn't aluminum. Making all of that about killed me. I taught my nephew how to do it, and gave him my mandrels and tools. He is really doing well with them. Two jobs they have been a life saver he said so far. He does alot of diesel hop ups.
thanks!!, the only couple of lines that need it are the vacuum advance and the brake booster line mentioned above. those originally has flat black cloth over rubber lines, they just use those fuel injection type clamps on the ends. the ones you squeeze with a pair of pliers. nice and simple, modern rubber hose is too shiny and probably made in China now anyway. This one should look nice with the firewall all painted .
Most use them cause of their history, or cause of the ease of installation or rapid changing. They are ugly, got it. If you know the right source, you can sometime get them cheap (used military surplus). I personally pulled mine off a downed Cessna cause they were free, the dye was very faded. I tired the oven cleaner (two different brands, and even the lemon scented to make a third try cuase I happened to have some) and it wouldnt pull the dye off. It wouldnt pull it off the brand new ones or the old ones, so mine just are how they are with some of them bright colors and some faded. They have reasons for the colors, although I must admit I prefer the plain or black by far and if you are going to be buying them on something to be shown, perhaps a little extra spent isnt such a bad idea. But, if you knock a whole vehicle, just for that little reason........ well you're a tard. BTW, here is a pic of them in the UH60 Blackhawk from a trip not too long ago, and youll notice the bright red fittings behind the linguist's head. They are safe is why I like them.
The first stainless braided we saw was at Atomics Internationals little junkyard - that you couldn't go in - but we could see all kinds of bitchin' stuff through the cyclone fence. Including barrels of made-up looked like new braided lines. Atomics International is/was located up the hill Chatsworth, California at the western edge of San Fernando Valley. It was the test site for the big - and smaller - rocket motors used in the space program. When they set one off on the test stand, it was like the end of the world if you were in the area. Not long after we started seeing barrels of made-up stainless lines when they showed up at a surplus place on Sepulveda Blvd. The counter guy said they were a one-use item or not used at all on the rocket motors. The ends appeared to be nickel plated and they looked like chrome. We'd dig through the barrels for a line the right size and length, buy the correct adapter fittings - the surplus store sold those too - and install some very nice oil and fuel lines on our cars. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~` If you can't find the exact fitting you need, you can set up aluminum AN fittings to do the job in several ways. I've combined then by buying a thick cap then drill & tap for a smaller fitting. As well as taken similar size fittings, saw one end off, drill another and combine them with JB Weld. Do it right and you can't see the "glue" line. I've also turned the AN 37* cone angle to 45* SAE. Since then, I've found you can adapt 37* AN to 45 * SAE with no epoxy or machining by using what's called a "repair cone". This is simply a formed soft sheet metal gasket to repair damaged fitting seats, but will form to what's required to put the two together. Look close at the pic and you'll see one sitting on the bench. The repair cone is directly below the 90* blue fitting and the two hoses....
I just bought 10 -4 bulkhead fittings with nuts in stainless from http://www.discounthydraulichose.com/ plus shiping. Not a bad deal. You have to buy at least $20 at a shot. That's why I bought 10. But it's not hard to get to $20
Ok so here is an update. I have now been keeping my eyes out for AN fittings. In fact they've been haunting me... This weekend at the starliner show I had the chance to poke around in a few different aircraft... and... AN fittings everywhere! I crawled around in a B-52 and they seemed to connect everything. But they were, in a lot of cases, painted over. This is perhaps why an uninformed casual observer could fail to notice them... I just wanted to thank everyone again for their awesome contributions to this thread!
where did you find AN on there? I couldn't find any. I may be able to get my power steering hose in regular hydraulic hose VS aeroqup hose. hose needs -8 female ends on each end though.
I know all the Formula Ford, Formula Mitsubishi, Formula Mazda and Lola F3 cars that I have built run 37 degree JIC form a variety of manufacturers. Goodrich is a large supplier in Europe as is Aeroquip and Earls. Carroll Smith did a great job in Prepare to Win in explaining the advantages and the WTF of AN.... My former students actually understood the "why" before we went into the hands on training part of line making. He went deeper in Nuts Bolts Fasteners and Plumbing if you really are into such things. If you are feeling wealthy, there is a nice crimper available from Goodrich for several thousands of dollars. Then you too can have Indy Car quality. I have always liked AN for safety.
Best fittings ever. Swagelok Stainless tube fittings are made in Cleveland Ohio USA since 1947. I've seen them run a 3/8" Swagelok fitting to over 36,000 psi until the .065 wall tubing just split. The fitting never failed. This is why Swagelok two ferrule tube fittings are rated to the pressure of the tubing in the system. Not cheap, but VERY high quality. I should mention I've worked for Swagelok for the past 14 years. I have a few Hot Rod customers here in Austin that buy alot of AN x tube stub adapters to adapt to Swagelok tube fittings and run hard Stainless out of the AN femal ports. Buzzard has a few Swagelok fittings on his coupe, and of course I have em' on my roadster. http://www.swagelok.com/
If you have been following this whole thread you will see that 37 degree JIC stainless is the same as AN without the traceable manufacture required by the FAA for real AN fittings. The stuff Russell and Earls if ever put on an aircraft could casus some A&P to be looking for a new line of work. Looks like AN should be the real lable. Also I retired 11 years ago but at that time we didn't use a lot of AN on the comerical aircraft I worked on. Most had been replaced with MS. Military spec. Looks pretty much like AN. Nicer to work with. Don't know why it hasn't shown up on race cars.
OK thanks, so the 37 degree JIC is the same then,good deal, the aeroquip PS hose is horribly expensive, I'm replacing mine anyway because I converted to all AN in the system, the factory hoses after 25 years have a nasty habit of splitting and spraying highly flammable aerosolized PS fluid all over the exhaust,which the OEM hose happens to run over top of. I have several friends who lost their same cars due to this problem, so safety in this hose is critical to me.
You can find AN to SAE fittings at most any Semi truck repair shop or dealer's parts counter. They can make a 2' hose up for you for around 20 bucks I Owned a 96 mack and what was interesting is that all the AN and SAE fittings were brass. The hose was stainess braided but had a cloth sheath so as not to abrade anything it might vibrate against. When I needed new hoses made the dealers (not just Mack...all dealers) were all carrying a different make hose using the same OD but a different ID on the new make hose incompatible with the legacy fittings and I had to run with the aluminum fittings every time a line was repaired. They also are dropping Timkin and switching to chingchang bearings which don't last and that pissed me off as well. The new make an stuff never failed on me, but the brass looked better I didn't have any luck finding out the manufacturer of the original style brass AN and SAE fittings so I can't help anyone there but look into where Mack might have gotten them back in the 90's. it could be a lead to something cool
Not sure but i think since the JIC are compatible, I know MSC carries an entire line of brass JIC fitings. I believe Mcmaster carr also carries them, their online catalog is hard to use,so calling them goes a long way
You have to be careful when using real old aircraft fittings. In earlier aviation, there was not AN (Army/Navy) fittings....they used AC (Air Corps) fittings. The AC fittings were a finer thread and had a 35 degree taper rather than the AN 37 degree taper. I did remember something from A&P school <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
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