Brake hoses used on bagged front suspension?

[westofb]

Okay, I have a 71 chevy that had issues with front suspension...RUST...in cross member and lower control arms, real bad in the spring pockets...I have no idea why the coil springs did not shoot out of the bottom of the truck...LOL. I had an 85 truck for parts so I swapped the entire front suspension including cross member to my 71 frame. I bought parts from Airbagit, I got everything for the 85 front suspension, bags, the bag mounts, and 2.5 dropped spindles. I finally got it all cleaned up, painted and installed. To ease the transition from the newer suspension to the older truck, in removed the hard brake lines from the 71 and installed them on the 85 front cross member (unbelievably, the cross member had predrilled holes for mounting the hard lines to it, exactly in the same places as the 71). I drilled the spot welds on the brackets that are used to transition from the hard lines to the rubber lines to the calipers and welded them onto the new x member. I then bought new rubber lines for a 71 disk brake front and installed them...but this is when I ran into problems. I have installled the drop spindles before on newer trucks and had to make slight alterations to the angle that the hose leave the caliper to gain clearance at the upper ball joint, I had to slightly bend them, so far so good. However, if I drop the front suspension with the way everything is now installed, as the truck squats, it starts putting tension on the newly installed hoses. So my question is, is there some way to buy 71 style caliper hoses that are a little longer than stock? Maybe like 2 inches longer? I think that would allow my suspension to fully travel without stretching (I am sure tearing them if I went to full drop). Sorry for the length of this post...just wanted to tell everything I had done...any info would be appreciated.