Tubing Straightener

[Prairie Swamp]

I've wanted one of these for awhile for hard brake and fuel lines. Eastwood wants $200 for a sheet metal Chinese POS. Finally got some time to get in the shop so I knocked this out.

eBay bearings and stuff from the junk pile. Works really well. Now I can sleep at night knowing the tubing underneath my vehicles is more or less straight.

 

[PAToyota]

I’ve been having similar thoughts. Need to get out to the shop and actually build one!

 

[cruisermatt]

Excellent. That is two separate blocks of AL, right? So it’s adjustable for different diameters?

 

[Prairie Swamp]

That's correct. That piece of brake line is blocking the split line in this picture. The shoulder bolts run through to the piece of steel on the bottom which has tapped holes.

The adjustment for a certain diameter tubing is super sensitive. Like 1/32 of a turn on the bolts. But once dialed in it works awesome.

I should be able to open it up big enough to do 5/16 fuel lines.

 

[jblueridge]

Awesome!
Please post more pics!

 

[Prairie Swamp]

Sorry no blueprints. Make it up as I go along. 5" x 1" aluminum, 1/2" x 5" shoulder bolts. The bearings are screen door roller bearings from eBay.

I have a Chinese bench top mill which is good enough for this type of work. Drilling the shoulder bolts holes would have been a bitch in a drill press.

 

[jblueridge]

Good work!
Thanks for the extra pics.

 

[scrapdaddy]

Wow, nice job!