doug1105

On the way home last night, my rear brake lines blew out in my 1998 Taurus.

It felt like a balloon popped under the brake pedal and it went to the floor.

The car would not stop at all with the brake pedal.

The rest of the 30 mile ride home I used the e-brake. That worked barely.

It was dark when I got home, so I got out the flashlight and took a look.

Holy Crud, the brake lines look like they came off the deck of the Titanic.

Brake fluid was sprayed all over the underside and dripping down behind the driver's side rear tire.

Looks like I'm re-doing the brake lines. Anybody have any tips on what size hard brake lines do I need to get, what size and what kind of ends the lines use?

Thanks,
Doug

SHOZ123

Try to reuse the fittings if you can. They are different for each wheel if you have rear disc.

matejcekautos

use the stock size, might be a good idea just to go down to your local ford dealer and see how much they want, cause prebent with all the right fittings makes life so much easier

SHOZ123

Your local Ford dealer will not have these parts. If you aren't going to do this yourself then most automotive repair shops should be able to replace the lines for ~$200 or so.

Canuck

The lines are 3/16 or 4.75 mm. I'm pretty sure that your car will have ISO Bubble Flare not the more common SAE Flare. You can do them yourself but make sure you get a good quality flare kit, I have the KD Tools kit and it works pretty good. Try and take the original line off in one piece, and then use it for a template to bend the new line. You can get a small tube bender for around $15. Do a couple of practice bends on a extra piece of tube and you should be good to go.

doug1105

Thanks for the replies.

Looks like today's the day to tear into this.

Here's the rough plan.

1 Get car up on stands
2 Survey the damage
3 Make a drawing of what needs to be replaced
4 Take off a couple of lines to match up line at the auto parts place
5 Get a pile of lines and fix it up.