So I got lazy and ordered a steel pump to carb line from a major tube manufacturer. Normally, I would just bend one up myself, but I figured that I would get another "exact repro". Hey, they make these on big computer driven equipment that you really cant duplicate at home in your garage with basic hand tools right? So it came in the mail and Im going to assume its defective. Both 90 degree bends where it make a U turn from the pump display kinks on the inside radius. Both bends are also flattened from whatever bending device they used. And the one 90 that is really kinked up, is not quite 90, so it will have to be tweaked. And you know whats going to happen if I try and bend it a little more. The kinking is hard to make out on tthe picture, but its definitely kinked I got so disgusted that I just went in the garage and made my own which came out better- no kinks and the bends maintain their diameter. I'll give the company the benefit of the doubt and assume its a case of defective bends and hope the replacement they send looks better. BTW- the repro fuel line was 18.00. The 72" piece of line I bought was 13.00 and I have enough left over to make a second. And mine fits better!:bla: :laugh:
Yours looks great (as usual), Jason. As far as the other tube goes, their CNC program may be just fine but the tooling setup or amount of tooling wear is what's leaving lots to be desired, I'm afraid. Devon
Thanks Devon! I guess that equipment is only as good as the guy running it. RJS, thats either a really good guess or you have some prior experience with this?
Jason I also purchased one from online tube for my 71 and it was an inch longer the good news is they are at a car show in Chicago and I am going to bring the piece in and let them compare it to my original let's see what they say
I got a responce from Inline Tube. I dont buy it but Im happy they will take it back. I find it very hard to belive that a tubing compnay with their equipment cant make a 90 degree bend without wrinkling or distortion that my $20 hand bender can Maybe I should send them a sample bend from my Imperial Eastman 3/8" bender which can bend a 3/8" line 180 degrees inside a 3" diameter with ZERO distortion. here is the respose i got from them- Dear mr.trishield, I have looked at the box of lines in our inventory and i see what you are talking about. i think kink is a little drastic. maybe wrinkled is a better term. any way that is the nature of bending tube the material has to go some where the tighter the bend the more the wrinkle will be. tubing is not made of the same materials as 40 years ago. its the best we can do. if you are not satisfied with the part send it back for a full credit.
You're right to suspect their reply. I've CNC bent many a low carbon and stainless tubes while prototyping for the OEMs (without a mandrel) and with the right setup and quality dies, they can be made to look gorgeous, even when bend bend radii is coming down to 2*d. Our tubes had to look good enough to win contracts, but we had to be careful, because for testing purposes the production tubes had to test at least as well as the prototypes. That caught us once or twice when production pieces had more bend reduction than the prototypes! Devon
I managed to take a slighly better pic to illustrate the issue. I dont know, maybe my standards are just too high. It seems that nothing I ever order meets them.
Don't change your standards to "the World's" sub par standard!!!!!!!!!! In my 30+ years in the Mopar world I usually used "Fine Lines" and had zero issues. In my 2 1/2 years of the Buick world I used "In Line" and had a bit more!!! I just remembered that the emergency brake cables I had on my Coronet were from In Line and made wrong guess a Tiger doesn't change it's stripes. The owner is a big Oldsmobile guy so I figured he'd be good with Buick stuff but whenever I dropped an email to tell of my unhappiness I usually got a tough guy chest-out answer. Ron
I bought a full set of fuel lines from the tank to the engine for my 66 Riv from them. I had sent them the old ones as a template. When I open the box I was extremely disappointed. They were just garbage. They sit on my garage wall and are used as tubing when I need some for odd jobs. They were'nt even bubble flared on the ends to keep the hoses on. In fact the old lines still had the rubber hoses on the ends so they never took them apart to even look at the ends. Plus they were just as you shown, badly kinked. Called them up and would not do anything for me, was told "what you see is what you get".
I don't waste my time with tube bender companies, I just make them myself. I have the benders and flaring tools. Generally speaking, the stuff you can buy nowadays will not meet what GM made on a bad day at the factory.
So When does Jason Cook tubing open fpr Business? I notice that the long brake and fuel lines the repop companies never duplicate the facotry originals properly. Especially where teh frame turns are. They are never as smooth. Was GM's equipment 40 years ago that much better than now? Does not compute.o No:
Unbelieveable that someone at home can make a tube better than a tube manufacture. The kink in the new one looks like crap. I guess as the old saying goes, "If you want it done right you have to do it yourself."
Now that you have the 'know how'and some extra steel line Jason, I need a fuel line for a 430 with a 'Stage ' fuel pump for the Riv when you get some 'free' time !! :laugh: :beer :TU: I had seriously considered buying 'ready made' lines for my resto, but a mechanic friend talked me into bending my own lines using the originals as a pattern, after a brief tutorial on how to double flare new steel lines, with a Snap-On flaring kit. Biggest mistake I made was forgetting to instal the brass fittings on a couple of the lines before completing the double flare. While it was very time consuming, the personal satisfaction of 'DIY', made it all worthwhile. :TU:
anyone can report something positive about this company? Has anyone tried the brake valve(s) they offer? I wanted to buy one from Inline when I came across this (old) thread. Is there another company with better results? Patrick
Jason, I would send a sample of one of your bends along with a copy of their response to you along with the returned tubing. It probably won't change anything, but it would me happy if I were in your situation.
Ya.. try ordering the metal line from the intake to trans modulator.. out of 5 or 6 lines I got over the years, I think maybe one was right. The last few have not even been close. Not just bends, but line diameter has been off once or twice. They can make the correct lines.. the last set I put on a frame off was nuts-on to the original. I don't think I pushed a line more than an inch or so to get it clamped in place properly. Lately it's just been that modulator line I have been after, and I know they can make the correct one, I bought the correct one from them a decade ago.. It should not be this hard. JW
