95 F250 brake lines...

Cheers,

I have a 95 F250. Two years ago the driver side brake line let go. Today the right rear brake line did the same thing.

Is this a difficult job for the 'do it yourselfer'? Any special tools needed?

Any advice / suggestions appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

"Brakeless in NJ"

Data Doc77

Reply to
datadr77
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Well I'll give you what info I know about brakes, which I admit to be limited. I'm sure that someone more knowledgeable will add to this. I've never done brake lines of a '95 f250, but have replaced brake lines before.

The brake line that you will buy will be much softer than what came on the truck and probably won't last as long, but will do the trick for you. You find the size you need and then buy the length required. You may have to joint 2 pieces together to reach the appropriate length.

To joint the pieces you need to double-flair the ends and for this job you need a tool that does that. It's not that expensive. The joints are then joined by a compression fitting. Don't forget to put the nut on the tubing before you flare it. :-)

I can't recall how I bent the tubing into the proper shape. There are springs that you can buy which go over the tubing and prevent it from collapsing or crimping when being bent.

Anyway you can use the old tubing as a guide for the new one. Once installed you have to bleed the brakes, of course.

That about all that I can recall about that job.

Good luck w/ it.

Peter H

Reply to
Peter H

Cheers,

I fixe the brake line. This is what I found out.

The brake lines are "hard" lines. It seems the rear line splits from a brass "box" then 2 separate lines go... one to each wheel cylinder.

Since the "box" is mounted on the 'rear end.'...left of the differential (looking from the back) one brake line is 30 inches long. This line goes up over the differential then down... and is held with a bracket. This is the line that continues to fail.

This is where the line "rotted" .between the bracket and the line. Must be the road salt applied during these NJ Winters getting hung up in this bracket... and moisture.

Another problem I encountered. The stock replacement 3/16" x 30" lines found at the NAPA parts store came with the same size fitting on both ends. This doesn't work on the F250. The size of the fitting on the wheel cylinder is larger and required me to buy an extra brass fitting to 'upsize' the stock brake line. This additional brass fitting cost more than the stock replacement brake line!

What really added to the problem was the Holiday weekend and parts store hours and ignorant parts store employees.

When trying to explain what I needed:

Response from Advanced Auto Parts salesman: "That's a tough one"!

Ford Dealer service dept closed 15 minutes before I arrived (Saturday

3:00pm)

Pep Boys salesman... after attempting to look up the brake line in the computer (5 times) with no luck... asks the salesgirl to his left: "How do you find find brake lines in this system?" to which she replied: "You don't, you take the customer to end of an aisle behind the counter and let the customer pick out what he needs".

As I stated... none of the stock lines would work.

I waited until the next morning and went to my neighborhood NAPA store.

Reply to
datadr77

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 22:50:25 -0400, datadr77 rearranged some electrons to form:

That's the part you didn't tell us about before. Maybe you should try to rinse the salt out from under the truck every so often with a hose, it would be a lot cheaper than trying to replace the brake line every year.

Reply to
David M

this just proves you should NEVER go to pep boys, r&s ma &pa auto ,fly by night auto parts ect. ect. when you need auot parts, go to napa first, get what you want the first time and be done with it.

Reply to
Falcoon

Now that everything is installed, spray it all down with some brake cleaner and paint the hell out of it with Rustoleum or a spray bomb of Undercoating. Should increase the life of the line before it rots out again.

Reply to
Neil Nelson

Replacing the rear axle brake lines is not tremendously difficult. Buy some pre-cut tubing so you don't have manually create the double flares. Measure the lenghts and get the pre-cut tubing as close to the original as possible. You'll need a tubing bender and some patience.

We replaced all of the brake line on our '87 F-250, you can see the project in detail here:

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. We had our lines poweder coated, but paint works well also. Just be careful not to kink the line.

Good luck,

Micnet

Reply to
M.Netherton

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