#3 - always a double flare for the brake lines.

#4 - if by "splicing" you mean "compression fitting", don't. You can use a double flare on the old and spliced line with a coupling if you can match the threads.

 

Are you sure they are double flares and not bubble flares? All the European cars I've ever made brake lines for a bubble flares... a real PITA to make!

 

I had to have this done on my 900.

The shop said that they wanted to replace the rubber hose as well, because they had had hassles before getting the connections loose. So you might want to include the hoses in your parts list.

 

They are bubble flares, the only one I am not sure about is the one where the two hard lines connect (under the drivers floor), I'd assume one side would have to be a female like version to accept a bubble flare, all the other positions is either the lines connecting to components or rubber lines that are designed to accept the bubble flares.

The bubble ones are pretty simple to make with some practice, just extend the pipe out of the flare tool about 2x what you normally would and then just use the tool to press it back on itself to create bubble.

 

It's probably a bubble flare under there too - Saabs have used bubble flares since the beginning, and I doubt they'd make a single exception somewhere under the car.

The thing that goes on the tube is a tube nut, but I don't know what you call the receiving end of that as standalone hardware - it might just be called a union. When I redid the brake lines on my XR4Ti, I had to make two unions and was able to source that female end from Fed Hill.

This image is from their website, and it shows what the inside of that female piece looks like... I mean, it looks like you'd expect...

The tube nuts are pretty easy to find these days as there are so many European cars in circulation that all use bubble flares. The female side is less common IME. Usually, the female side is the "device" like a caliper or flexible hose, so it's rare you'd need to fabricate one.

Of course, if your hardware is in good shape it's reusable - just cut the tube and slide the hardware off.

FWIW, when I redid the brake lines on my Falcon I used CuNiFe(r) - basically copper alloy brake line. The factory lines are all steel, but steel is very difficult to work with, and I've had piss-poor luck flaring the *correct* vinyl covered steel line without decimating the vinyl and leaving the line totally open to rust. The copper alloy doesn't have that problem, because it essentially doesn't suffer in the environment. It's been on the car for many years now and looks like new - I'd recommend it. I've read Porsche and Volvo use or have used this type of tube, but I've never personally observed it. Nobody will let me work on their Porsche.

All that said, if the damaged brake lines in question don't exceed a couple feet in length, they'd be easy to ship... why not just buy used lines from a west coast or southern car? That seems the easy button.

 

Ya, NiCopp, Nickel Copper. It's the ****. Very easy to work with and lasts longer than the expensive coated German brake tubing. All my Porsches have it

FWIW, when I redid the brake lines on my Falcon I used CuNiFe(r) - basically copper alloy brake line. The factory lines are all steel, but steel is very difficult to work with, and I've had piss-poor luck flaring the *correct* vinyl covered steel line without decimating the vinyl and leaving the line totally open to rust. The copper alloy doesn't have that problem, because it essentially doesn't suffer in the environment. It's been on the car for many years now and looks like new - I'd recommend it. I've read Porsche and Volvo use or have used this type of tube, but I've never personally observed it. Nobody will let me work on their Porsche.

 

The rear lines or at least the rear section of the rear lines are pretty long, think 8 feet or so especially for the right rear. Not easily shippable, I think eEuro actually has them but wont ship local pickup only.

I'd have to look closer at that section under the floor on the Saab, but I believe its just a two piece fitting, it looks like what you have pictured works in 3 pieces, two fittings with flares that then both thread into that thread coupler you have pictured.

 

I'd have to look closer at that section under the floor on the Saab, but I believe its just a two piece fitting, it looks like what you have pictured works in 3 pieces, two fittings with flares that then both thread into that thread coupler you have pictured.

Yeah, that was just for illustrative purposes. The actual female union is very difficult to find. I actually don't remember where I finally found then when I did the XR, but it took a lot of searching. That's why I suggested re-using the existing hardware if possible.

 

couple of places

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/...BRAkEiwAGw4SdsCVH6DLDQD9lZv-XFMQAh8rPZVTVp9eEmiaujp1W-C8_ohaFvwiMRoCU9AQAvD_BwE

this one is probably what you need

https://www.autozone.com/brake-syst...apter/ags-m10-x-1-0-thread-bubble-flare-steel-union-contains-1-union/845271_0_0

 

Those are unions, two sets of female threads. I'm with Jake - I don't think that's the right part... I think you need just a female tube nut.

 

My thing was if you have just two nuts (well one male threaded part and one female threaded part) then the bubble fitting on each end of the line would butt up against each other. With the coupler you have a female recess that the bubble fitting fits up against. Since the Saab just uses two threaded parts and not a coupler I'm not sure of the flare on both ends.

If you look at the picture you can see (well slightly over exaggerated) the bubble flare at the end normally it fits into a recess (the caliper, ABS module or fittings on the rubber hoses has them machined into them) so when you tighten down the fitting the bubble flare seals correctly. But if you try to butt two bubble flares up against each other you wont get a perfect seal, now if you used a machined coupler (i.e. nut - coupler - nut) you could get them to fit tight, but for that one fitting under the car Saab only uses two fittings. I'm thinking one of the flares may be a regular (i.e. concave) flare, see 3rd pic.

On a side note, looks like eEuro would ship them, just not reasonably. Maybe a local former Saab dealer could order them in tho. List price is pretty reasonable.

 

Yep. Two flares, two nuts, and a union is the conventional way to do it.

 

Agreed, but that isn't how the ones one the Saab are, just two nuts, so I have to assume we have at least one normal flare fitting. So to answer the original question, bubble flares on all but one end of two (the long rears for each side) lines.

 

I am guessing you are looking at something like this then.

 

Thank you all for the information.

When the brakes went out, I was about 26 miles from home and decided to leave the car with a garage rather than flat bed it to my house. I rented a car to get me back and forth from work.

The mechanic called and said I need a "brake reduction valve" for the rear brake on the passenger side. This valve connects to the rubber hose and then to the rear brake line. About $110 USD.

I thought the valve wasn't necessary in a 1997 w/ABS ???

Is there one of these valves on each rear brake?

My Saab has been in their shop for awhile and I'm not getting a warm fuzzy feeling that they really know how to work on a Saab braking system.

I stopped there today and they have fabricated a new steel line from the driver's side rear brake to where it joins in the front. Lots of unions and I would rather they made it one piece.

I should have had the car towed to my house :-(

 

The mechanic called and said I need a "brake reduction valve" for the rear brake on the passenger side. This valve connects to the rubber hose and then to the rear brake line. About $110 USD.

I thought the valve wasn't necessary in a 1997 w/ABS ???

Is there one of these valves on each rear brake?

I checked WIS and EPC. And, well, it's not clear.

For '94-'95 there is what WIS calls a "pressure reducing valve". No mention of anything else after that.

In EPC, for '94, there's a "reduction valve", one for each side before the connection to the brake hose. It's NLS with an updated part given.

For '97, EPC shows the updated part number. :roll:

I'll pop my head under my '97 and see what I can see. My guess is that if they were installed on your car before, you would need them. Unless someone did some parts swapping in the past.

 

As far as I can tell without dragging out the jack and jack stands, there is no valve of any kind between the brake hose and the hard line on the axle. And I don't think there's any valve at the other end of the hose, where it goes to the body.

While it's not an NG900, when I replaced the hose on my 9-5, there was no union necessary to attach the flex hose to the brake line on the body (9-5 rear caliper is floating). The hose clips into the fastener and the line threads in.

I would conclude:

1. There was no valve before, and there needs to be no valve now
2. The brake hose may or may not be correct (but it was quite hard to see what was going on with the hoses on my car)
3. When jakejm79 shows up, he'll tell you exactly what you need to do ;ol;

 

The later 900s (and I think 9-3s) have a weird bracket where the proportioning valve used to be. I'm wondering if the mechanic is seeing that bracket and looking at the EPC and thinking the valve should be there.

The flex hose that goes at the axle pivot point is a male at one end and female at the other. You should be able to reuse (unless terribly rusty, though they are brass I think so shouldn't be as bad as the lines or hose fittings) the fittings from the factory lines.

 

The flex hose that goes at the axle pivot point is a male at one end and female at the other. You should be able to reuse (unless terribly rusty, though they are brass I think so shouldn't be as bad as the lines or hose fittings) the fittings from the factory lines.

You've seen a lot of these cars, are the hoses prone to failure?

If I was doing this, I'd probably consider new hoses, especially if there's a bunch of work required to get them apart. By now the hoses are 20 years old. Might be okay if undisturbed, but once disturbed....

 

I've never seen a hose fail in all the cars I have come across. If it was my car and I was keeping it I'd replace the hoses tho if doing the lines, the fittings on the hoses become rusted and if you are going to have to bleed the system and undo the fittings anyway, cheap enough to swap out the hoses.

 

IIRC if the system went dry you need Tech 2 (or similar) to bleed the brakes. You have to activate the ABS valves in order to purge all the air. Those few times I've had to seriously adjust brake lines on an ABS car I always take steps to ensure the reservoir & valve body does not go dry so I don't get here.

FWIW, this is not unique to Saab - most any car with ABS needs the factory tool to fully bleed a dry system. If they're not doing that they should, and they should know it. However, the fact that they made you order irrelevant parts and made leaky lines causes me to suspect they may not quite know what they're doing.

 

The WIS does state a specific (non normal) order but there should be no need for a tool. If they used a pressure bleeder the seals in the MC may have deformed a little and can take a few days to work back into shape.