hard brake line leak
 

This morning as I was getting ready to pull away from the diesel pump, my brakes went to the floor and the ABS light came on. Get it home where I can look at it and find that the line has a hole right above the rear axle where it goes to rubber hose. It is right in front of the little junction where it goes from hose to steel. The lines are pretty cruddy there, so I know it needs replaced.

Advance auto says they have brake line with ends already on it, but I've never really messed with brakes all that much other than to adjust them. Anything that I need to know to replace it? I think I'm going to have to drop a full tank of diesel, because it runs back in behind there along the frame rails. Oh well, we pick up our new 5th wheel on Tuesday, glad it happened now rather than then.

You could just cut and flare the bad end off as well. But, if you do not have any experience with that, swapping the lines is no big deal. Do not over tighten, tight, but not gorilla tight. Do not use sealers on the threads. This will mask a leak. The seal is made on the flared ends, just like JIC fittings.

Remember you will need brake fluid to refill the system. It can be gravity bled, but will take a while, so be sure your brakes are bled properly or you'll have fits for a long time to come.

This would also be a good time to bleed every corner of the truck and replace old fluid with new. This may be what caused the leak. If you had water in the lines, it's not uncommon to rust from the inside out. I replace all the fluid once a year for this reason alone.

Dave

Like fishing says you could cut and re-flare the original line at the leak point but remember that brake lines require a "double" flare, meaning the flare is folded over. There are special flaring tool kits that will do this very easily.

So it should be threaded where the transition is to the rubber hose? I thought that it was but there is a lot of rust up in there. I think probably the 13 years of being in the gravel roads and salted roads in the winter just ate away at it. God knows it is doing that on the body.

I assume that line goes all the way up to the master cylinder? Looks like I'm going to learn about making brake lines tomorrow. Hooray! [dummy]

Dont mess around dropping the tank, just get close to the right length of 3/16" brake lines and a connector, put them together, then use electrical tape to cover over the end you are going to fish back thru the tank. I clipped it fore and aft and have never had an issue.

Just a FYI, for a 2nd Gen extended cab you need (1) 60" line and (1) 30" line, it works out really well, for a standard cab just subtract the additional length, say 18"

Ended up getting it all done Saturday. Replaced everthing from the front connection to the rear axle. Used right at 11 feet to replace it. Dropped the tank, but was able to get quite a bit out and into cans and my wife's Jetta so that it wasn't quite so heavy to get back up there. Wasn't all that bad and with the tank out of the way it was easy to see whether or not any of it was leaking when we did the bleed.