Airline recommendations

I just finished reinstalling my ARB CKMTA12 compressor under my hood, and got down to doing a leak down test and found that all of my cheap harbor freight air hose to the back of my Jeep where my air tank is had dry rotted. I had run my air hose along the brake and fuel lines on the left frame rail.



So I did some reading - I have three options for replacing my harbor freight hose.
1) use DOT semi air line with push lock type fittings. The catch is that its temperature sensative.
2) use braided stainless with a Teflon barrier. I already have 3 feet of this leading from the compressor as a way to disapate heat, and I really like it but its expensive.
3) use flexible copper. Cheap. Few downsides.

Here is the under hood situation:


The airline leaving the compressor is connected using a bsp to an -4 adapter, and then after the stainless I have an an -4 to 1/4 mip fitting to convert to standard air line.

I dont really know how to move forward on this one. Knowing what I have, how would YOU proceed if it was your Jeep?

I am a fan of Nylon 11 Tubing and Push-Connect Fittings.
Been using it for years in various mobile applications.

I used D.O.T. air brake line with Ptc fittings andwith careful routing have had no failures after a few years.

I ended up getting 3/8 id poly pipe from Lowes and some brass barb fittings. I used fuel injector clamps to hold the poly pipe. Does anyone see any issues with this? I don't know how tough poly pipe is but it was super cheap, and rated at 300 psi.

At first I used the truck brake line, however i melted a few holes in it.
After getting tired of patching the holes, I switched to stainless tubing and swagelock connectors. No issues since

Re: Re: Airline recommendations

souske said:

At first I used the truck brake line, however i melted a few holes in it.
After getting tired of patching the holes, I switched to stainless tubing and swagelock connectors. No issues since

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How hard is it to work stainless tube? What size did you go with?

xeroOTG said:

How hard is it to work stainless tube? What size did you go with?

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I use a lot of Swagelok but heck, you can spend more on connectors than you did on the compressor.

No kidding. I'm in probably $100 in fittings already and I haven't used anything crazy...

The stainless is pretty difficult to bend. might be able to use a regular copper bending tool, not sure. I got lucky, and we already had a swagelock bender at work.

I went with 1/4" line, as all its doing is filling a .5 gal tank at the rear that in turn feeds the arb.

Ill try and take a picture later. The stainless came out really nice, and looks like it belongs there

Dont use malaysian airlines

MrShaft696 said:

Dont use malaysian airlines

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That's about what I thought when I first saw the thread title!

I always just use the cheap stuff like you have in the first picture, with barbs and hose clamps, and replace the pieces under the hood twice a year. At about $20 for a 50 ft roll, I've got a decade worth of replacement hose sitting on the shelf.

souske said:

I switched to stainless tubing and swagelock connectors. No issues since

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Oh man. You can make the line super expensive super quick with swagelock.
But going the stainless tube is a great idea, and if you use a proper bender it's actually easy to bend.

I'd love to see how yours looks.

Re: Re: Airline recommendations

souske said:

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That's awesome looking! What diameter is it?

1/4"
Would be undersized for airing up tires, but works well for my purposes.