Gramma's Car: the new project!

[njsteve]

Absolutely right on that rubber cap advice.

Installed the new calipers and hoses yesterday. Had quite a time getting the hoses to not leak at the calipers after bleeding the brakes. Every time I'd tighten down the banjo fittings with the supplied "allegedly" copper, crush washers, the damn things would seep brake fluid. I removed them and they had no crush marks like the originals, even though I was using a 1/2 drive ratchet to tighten the fittings to a "Jersey strength" rating. I finally reinstalled old crush washers and no leaks occurred.

This lead me to the obvious conclusion that the new copper crush washers that are manufactured today (no doubt, in China) are not the same as the originals. I have a funny feeling that they are either copper-plated steel or some type of alloy that is not crushable. A buddy of mine had the exact same problem trying to get a turbocharger coolant line to not leak...he solved it by reusing the old washers, also.

Does anybody have a way to test my theory? Don't they have some type of metal hardness test?