midiwall

I have a leak within the collar on a hard brake line.

The sidestory tells of how much fun it is to realize that you have _no brakes_ at 70mph, but the drama only ends up with taking a couple of deep breaths and driving with one hand on the emergency brake until you get "safe". weeeeeeeeee!

Shopping the local Schuck's only brought looks of confusion from the counter dudes, it seems that they're not used to seeing a hard line with 10mm x 1.0 fittings on both ends. To get home, I ended up buying a 10mm x 1.0 bolt to plug the line higher up in the chain and I drove back on 3 wheel brakes. The pull to one side was fun to handle.


ANYWAY!

I need a new hardline... Marlin posts these, but they don't state the years - the line looks exactly right:
http://www.marlincrawler.com/brake.html

Anyone know if these will fit?

kevin444

Would getting SS brake lines cure the problem, and at the same time get a little more braking performance.

midiwall

Well. I dunno how much of a "problem" this is... it's the first it's happened after 142,000 miles.

When I took a good look at it, it's clear that the line was sitting at an angle as it came into the coupler, so there was definitely some chafing going on. This was the hardline that feeds the caliper, so there's definitely some back & forth twisting going on. But again, 142k of driving and only one failure is pretty good. Though, it's not a failure I'd like to repeat again.


I have an "issue" with running the fatter lines... I understand (and agree with) the physics, but in order for it to "work", I'd have to replace all of the lines - since the smallest line in the chain will create the most resistance. If I just replace the last hard line, the smaller lines that come before it will still be the bottleneck.

Of course, maybe that's what you're saying to do.

kevin444

Heres another source for ss lines.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...RK%3AMEWA%3AIT

dsm59

a couple of things.YOu DOnt want to have Your Brakesystem Made of Braided hose..You need the Hardline because it doesnt expand under pressure(the SS lines are a Great Upgrade for the Stock RUBBER Flexlines but thats about as much involment the SS lines should have in Your Brakesystem and Second the Inside Diameter of a -3brake line is the same as the hardline that originate from the MasterCylinder...The -3 lines are Made of a Teflon inner tubing wraped around a prtecteve steel sleeve...the teflon is really great in improving overall brake pedal feel.

MTL_4runner

The stainless braided lines as mentioned above do flex more than a hardline and should only be used to replace the rubber sections, so if you replaced them with those your brakes would feel "mushier" (....if that is even a word), so if it was my truck I wouldn't go that route. What did the dealer say about where they get them? (I don't think they carry lines as a standard part, but them must have a source to be able to replace them when needed).

waskillywabbit

iTrader: (-1)

I can't believe a local auto parts place doesn't have some metric caliper brake lines. Is that all you need? I picked up 2 new ones for the 85 w/ the same fittings as your 3rd gen for less than $5.

midiwall

Cool on the bad side of using flex lines from top to bottom... makes sense.


My local dealer contact says he could order them and have them on Wednesday. The parts counter was closed where I was yesterday.


And, in fact, I found them at my local Schuck's today - $2.50 for an 8" line. But up north of me, we hit two Schuck's... I hadn't yet sized the line when we went to the first one (and their parts database doesn't cross reference brake line sizes), then at the 2nd, they didn't have 'em.

midiwall

Update: The new brake line is on - it's once again safe for people to cut me off.


Thanks for the words folks!