A friend of mine had mushy brakes in his Blazer (I recently helped install rotors/pads on the same truck). We found the problem, he had a pin hole in his rear line, it had rusted through.



We got wily with DIY confidence and managed to yank out the brake line. It runs from a connector by the front driver side wheel well, to the rear frame immediately above the rear axle. Quite a few bends in it, naturally.



What's the best way to replace it? Can I buy a straight piece, and bend it into place? Or are there pre-bent factory replacement lines?



If I bend my own lines, should I try to make it fit the exact mounting points as the factory line (plastic channels it clipped into), or can I just zip-tie it (A LOT) to the fuel lines it follows?



edit: Can we run SS braided lines the whole way? I've got got at least 2 hydraulic shops a few miles from my house.

 

http://www.fedhillusa.com/



I have their flaring tool and it ROCKS!!!!

 

Really? Nice. Can I borrow it?



I can offer Baldy this bit of experience: I tried making some flares with a cheap flaring tool and some steel brake line. Let's just say that it didn't go very well.



You can find pre-terminated lengths of hard brake line at the auto parts stores. Be sure to get the right thread on the tube nuts. Then it's just a matter of bending the length to get it to fit. A small tubing bender will help, but if you're patient, you can carefully bend it by hand or shape it using various cylindrical objects. Should be do-able.

 

I repaired the brake lines in my old Cherokee a good 11 years ago and it held this whole time.

The original brake line snaked around the truck so much and only the end had corroded off, I was able to

unclip some of it enough to get some slack, used the $9 flaring tool at the auto parts store ( best I could do at 7:00 on a Saturday night ), figured let me do this until I can get the time to change it out.



AS usual I never did.



So them crappy flaring tools and old lines aint that bad.



As more of the complicated lines started to corrode I proceeded with the same repairs.



When the fuel lines and transmission lines starting rotting away and the window regulators that is when I retired the truck, but all those quick evening and sat afternoon repairs held up great, ******* thing always had a habit of springing a leak in the middle of a storm while I was plowing and I had to get back on the road quickly to avoid losing money.

 

I have had good luck with the cheap flaring tools by heating the end of the brake line to a cherry red before putting it into the flaring tool. You have to work fast, but even double flares are doable like this.



Or if you want to go all out, you can buy all the fittings to convert it to AN stuff and use pre-made AN brake lines. Summit Racing and Jegs both sell the AN adapter fittings to various brake line threads, banjo bolts, etc. Then the AN lines come pre-made in lengths in about any length. This is what I did for the brakes on my bike.

 

We bought 2 lengths of straight line from Advance Auto. 72" and 60", and the bit to join the two together. Bought the cheapo tube bender and cheapo cutter, and rented the double flaring tool. It went well. Doesn't look factory, but it follows the factory line route. Zip-tied to one of the fuel lines in several places, it felt very solid. Bled brakes at all four wheels just to be sure (since it was sitting without a line attached for a couple days), and found zero leaks. Drove it across town, stopped just fine.



It's always nice doing some sort of repair I've never done before, and it works out nicely.



As for using the cheap flaring tool, it worked great as long as we had a few inches of straight line before the end. If the tube had already been bend, even a little, the flare would get messed up. Other than that, it was easy to use and worked great.



Edit: I just remembered, one thing about the flare tool that was a pain was the clamp that held the line had threads inside it, presumably to grip the line. These left a rough surface on the line after the flare, which had to be filed/sanded down so the threaded sleeve/nut/thing on the line could easily slide over the line.

 

good Job

 

woo hoo! Good job!



I hate doing them but, i have to make them for the jeeps i restore... its not a hard job, just tedious. It gets easier and quicker as you do more of them though.

 

Thanks! LOL at the tedious comment, throughout the job I kept repeating out loud, "not hard...tedious."



I will say, we probably would have done it a bit cleaner or used better tools, but we were pressed for time. This guy works out of town, anywhere from 5 weekdays to 3 weeks straight. His wife drives the Blazer and her Mustang alternately to keep both vehicles in good shape. Once the Blazer arrived at my house and we realized it was a leaking brake line, we determined it should not be driven at all until it was repaired, and I didn't want it sitting in my driveway for a week or more. But we were both happy with the results.