Seem to have painted myself into a corner. I fabricated one of those master cylinder mounted 90 degrees behind the dash setups. Ran brake lines from the master cylinder that exit the cab at the lower recesses of the firewall, front brake line going to the left corner and rear brake line to the right. Grommets at the firewall and then I flared the lines for the fittings. Now that I'm trying to disassemble the whole works for bodywork and paint, I'm kind of stuck. The brake lines won't pass through the grommets with the flare nuts on. Do one of you guys with a similar brake pedal setup have a more elegant solution?
There are some OEM grommets or hole plugs that support a small hole through a larger grommet. Do some shopping to find them. You may need to cut the existing line and make a new one, in order to get a proper hole size to slip the fitting through. But the key is to find the grommet that will work.
I don't have much for pictures but I used some brass tees. I plugged one side to the cross part and then cut a hole in the firewall that the leg went through. I then machined a cover to go over the tees. I will see if I can get some pics from inside later.
Is there enough room between the line and the hole to get a jewelers file in there and hex out the hole just enough to pass the flare nut through? Maybe a little tape to protect the line. Then re-round the hole to a larger OD grommet. Edit: I just went back and reread your post. Is the problem the fact that the hole in the firewall for the grommet is too small for the flare nut to pass through (In which case my solution may work.) or that the flare nut is too big to pass through the grommet with the grommet installed and the grommet won't push out of the hole in the firewall? If this second scenario is the case, maybe you could make a radial cut in one side OD lip of the grommet to ease pushing it out of the firewall.
A clearer picture of the problem area would help, but I did this on my build allowing disassembly and re-assembly. The pass-through hole in the panel is just barely larger than the IF nut hex and the grommet is cut to allow it to be replaced when it's all assembled. With this method I actually have a rear brake line and 3/8" fuel line going through both sides of a center x-member.
You don't want to hear my advice, because I'd never put a master cylinder under the cowl. If you think it's hard to work on now, what happens when you have a breakdown or leak after the car is complete? How are you going to sort through all the wiring and the backside of the gauges to get to your brake lines? And dripping fluid all over the carpet? Not for me.
Bulkhead fittings. I installed the right front on the right side along with heater fittings, left front and rear on the left. Only want throttle and coil wire thru the firewall.
Sorry, but all the work your putting into your project the first two things I would stop and redo is your use of those electrical crimp connections and toss the master cylinder under the dash plan. Either go back the way the factory installed it or a firewall mount. I can see what you originally wanted to do but I see future headaches and cuss words.
Thanks to everyone who responded to my call. It really helps me to rethink the problem. I made up my own bulkhead connectors because I couldn't find anything that didn't rely on AN fittings. The one on the left is a 3/16" inverted flare coupler silver soldered to steel strap. The other one is similar but I used a 1/8"NPT elbow because I need to attach a residual pressure valve in this line. They will screw to the firewall with 10-32 machine screws. Hope it works out.
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