by Jon Mikelonis

Introduction
Some say in life it's how you control temptation that separates the men from the boys. As hobbyists we are faced with temptations whenever we are working on our cars. Perhaps you've felt the pressure to just use a tie wrap when the proper clamp would be a cleaner option. Heck, we've done it and still do. Or maybe you've used a fuel filter with 5/16" hose barbs when you're running 3/8" line, simply because you had that filter in the garage. Whether you call it succumbing to temptation or call it cutting corners, corners cut can affect aesthetics and potentailly reduce performance. On a more serious note, not only can some short cuts cost your car its' life, but they can cost you your own.

We mentioned in the the final chapter of our StreetWise 460 article that a
transmission fluid fire nearly sent our Torino to the graveyard. At the time
we did not elaborate on the event but this was purely a result of poor
decision making. Frankly, it was rather embarrassing. Yes, we ran rubber lines to our factory transmission cooler believing a 3" buffer between our exhaust headers was enough to prevent the flaming episode that still haunts a few of us at FordMuscle. A word to the wise - when you are on the side of the road watching six months of work in flames, you'll stop at nothing to put it out. This includes sacrificing your body, so carry a fire extinguisher for pete's sake.

As a result of our unfortunate incident we bring you this. In the following pages we will show you one option for making up safe tranny lines and while we are at it, we'll extend the life of our rebuilt C6 by adding an aftermarket cooler.

Bending the Hard Line
In order to keep our Torino mobile after the roadside fire incident, we just put a steel hoop between the inlet and outlet of our C6. Of course this meant we were bypassing even the factory cooler which had served us well as a temporary solution. The time came for us to install something that would be safe and effectively cool our fresh C6 and Transmission Specialties 10" converter.

Since our B&M cooler uses 1/2" NPT inlet and outlet ports, we planned to incorporate 3/8" steel line. Something just didn't seem right about stepping down from a 1/2" NPT to a 5/16" hose barb. Steel brake lines, steel transmission lines, it's the same stuff. We picked up two 50-inch pieces from Napa Auto Parts. In order to use the fittings that come with this line we needed to replace the inverted flare fittings on the transmission.		Brass fittings, oh sweet brass fittings. Let's just say Leonard Nemoy's "In Search Of" comes to mind everytime we need some. Because our B&M cooler uses 1/2" NPT ports, we decided to replace the factory 5/16" inverted flare fittings with 3/8", in order to run 3/8" line. We suggest you seek out a hydraulic supply store in your locale. Or, try ordering before-hand from mail order catalogs like McMaster-Carr.
After taking a look under the car we eyeballed the track our first line would need to take in order to avoid any contact with the exhaust or transmission cross-member. Be sure you have a fitting on each far end of the tube before you make a bend.		A few bends later and we were successfully out to the frame rail and ready for a hard 90 degree turn towards the passenger side fender well.
We made a mark on the tubing to indicate exactly where the apex of our 90 degree turn needed to be. We used a heavy charcoal pencil since ball point pens don't leave clear reference on steel.		Take a close look and you can see the relationship of our mark with the tubing bender. Not quite the apex of the bend, but close enough.
The first line was complete and was something to be proud of, even though we knew nobody would be as impressed as the guy that made it. Remember this concept the next time you're tempted to brag about your kid.		Of course we had another line to make-up. It required a few additional and more complicated bends. Once it was complete, we were ready for flaring the cut end of each line.