Quality steel brake lines?

Where can I purchase steel brake lines that are made of decent steel and are plated rather than painted?

 

Why plated?
Chromed lines you mean?

 

Carquest,NAPA etc...........most have a light galv type plating on em.

 

Ah.. I never bought line from auto stores before, just grabed what we have in our hydraulic shop and go to town.

 

Ask for stainless steel, I think that's what you're getting at?

 

I was referring to steel lines, like the ones I sold 30 years ago and bought until recently.
I think they may have had some kind of galv plating like Tman wrote.
The "new" lines are painted to prevent rusting. I tried using some yesterday. They were painted with aluminum paint. It looks like they had some kind of copper colored coating on the inside. The flaring tool bit into the paint and the tube wasn't centering correctly. The flares were crap when I finished. They were off center and looked like I had never flared a line before.
I have heard that some stores sell lines painted black or dark green. Has anyone used those?
I guess I'll try NAPA. It seems like they are the only ones carrying "old" QUALITY parts now.

 

If not Stainless steel would look pretty darn good i think, plush very durable.

 

The new coating seems to be a epoxy/viniel stuff ,works ok just don't like the looks of it myself. EIS products sells 25 ft rolls of the old Bundy-flex, WH etc may still also.

 

Here in the land of snow and brine,(that's right, they put a brine solution on the roads here before it snows), the auto parts stores are selling a pile of coated brake lines. It does look dark green or black, buy it in 25 foot rolls, as usually if you have one bad line, you have to do them all. Seems easy to work with, will let you know in about 18 months how well it stands up.

tc

 

Stainless steel is the only way to go, if you don't want it to be shiny take some scotch-brite to it.

Check out Inline Tube these guys have most any line you could need. If you have an original you want copied they can do that too.

www.inlinetube.com

 

I tried the "dark green" or "coated" brake lines - they looked like shit (white chalky corrosion) after one NE Ohio winter. I don't particularly like them, but I found out recently they do flare OK - better than the "traditional" line I am used to working with.

I think either one of those are hit or miss at today's china parts express Auto Parts stores we are virtually forced to work with. Most of it is garbage from what I can tell.

Now the "bundyflex" stuff I have had excellent results with as of late.

I ran stainless on the digger - total PITA to work with. Bending was fine - flaring was not - and YES I had "good" flaring tools. It was still a PITA. I also found myself having to "seat" each line a dozen or so times before they'd actually seal - otherwise they'd weep.

It's brakes - they're kinda important - get GOOD Made in the USA stuff.

EDIT: BTW that USED to mean go to NAPA - but now-a-days they are forced to compete with the big box stores - which means they sell the Sum Flung Dung Brand of merchandise as well as the good stuff - so you better pay attention to make sure you know what you are buying.

BTW I think McMaster sells "bundy" tubing. ALso any decent parts store will also sell brake line on the roll. It's usually "better" than the stuff they have on the rack. YMMV