Brake Line Flare Nut Corrosion

[LETZRIDE]

So I finally got to taking off my rear brake lines (what a PITA on jack stands). Never mind that line wrenches only helped me get a few flare nuts off, while the other half still rounded.... I think I figured out my leak. I expected to find my flare be cracked at the joint above my rear diff as that is where it was leaking. Instead, the joint looked perfectly ok. The flare nut on the stainless steel lines though (female side) looked pitted inside like it has some white corrosion. My best guess is this caused the line to stop sealing and therefore leak.

Anyone else ever run into this before? I have never seen or heard of this happening and I can't figure out why it would happen? Plus the car doesn't get driven in the winter. It had one winter where it saw a bit of salt for less than a week as I was forced to drive it.

I'll throw some pics up shortly...my guess is I have to replace my SS braided lines - and also my brake lines since I wrecked half the nuts removing it...

[ssms5411]

That sucks Mike, in AZ we don’t get to much rust and no salting the roads. Yeah post some pics. On a side note my line wrenches sucks when replacing my lines in January, had to use vice grips.

[2.8 Bird]

Wow, I didn't know that can even happen.

[Namrepus28]

Getting all fancy here with your brake line failures. Mine just rust at the flare nut threads like normal.

(Never seen it before. Looking forward to pics.)

[LETZRIDE]

I hate the nut flare and how they seize in lol. I rounded them even with the line wrench ...

pics:

[Namrepus28]

Huh. How odd. It's all pitted, just like you said. I don't think I've seen that before.

[LETZRIDE]

Finally ordered some new brake hoses from Rockauto. I just went with rubber lines this time. I need to get some replacement brake lines, but thinking if I measure it out properly I can maybe just 2 prefabbed lines and cut down on my headaches.

With any luck I might get to it this weekend. Work has been insanely crazy lately and me and the girlfriend bought a pre-build house at the beginning of the year that hopefully should be done early next year, but seems like every week we need to make some kind of a decision for it.

[ssms5411]

Nice Mike, post some pics as you go. I’m sure I’ll need to replace my line’s someday. Being 25 years old next month.

[LETZRIDE]

Will do. I was debating running new line from the front to the back as the line is looking a little rusty. I opted to only fix what is broken. If it can last me a few more years I plan to hopefully install a lift in my garage within a year after getting the house. With that I can actually move around easier. The girlfriend isn't the biggest fan though lol

[ssms5411]

Yeah my next house, hopefully will have a garage, a lift would be awesome. Can you coat the brake lines so they don’t rust. Mines 25 years old and no rust so far.

[LETZRIDE]

So rethought things. Since the one of the flare nuts is not wanting to spin on the line and other other looks like it has some pitting I will need to do 2 new flares. Looking at how shitty the line looks, I think I am going to order some new line. There is a company on ebay that sells the front to rear SS hard lines for $54. They mention they use a union which I am not overly a fan of, but if it is a brass female union it's a non safety issue and should get me fixed up for years to come...

I sent them a message on ebay and am waiting a reply to the few questions I did have about their stuff. I'll probably just buy the 2 rear axle lines too. They are about $20 more than what it would cost me to buy a pre flared line and bend up, but this way I have less headache, guessing or any type of issues. And, for $20 if it saves me even 30 minutes of just driving to the store, find the supplies, driving back etc, it is worth the $20...

[LETZRIDE]

Just ordered my brake lines- $105 usd for brand new front to rear lines (steel) and both rear axle lines.

I’ll need to massage the rear lines to fit the Ford 8.8 rear end, but they should work.

This setup eliminates the flex hose on the 98+ F-bodies at the abs block. I don’t see why that would be an issue, but I’ll report if it ends up being an issue.

Not sure how difficult this install is going to be. Hoping I have enough room between the engine/engine bay wall to get to the lines, yank and install them...

[ssms5411]

Cool, take some pics, mine being 25 years old, I’ll have to replace them sooner or later.

[LETZRIDE]

Got around to yanking the old lines out yesterday. What a pain the in the ***. Getting the heat shield and lines out from beside the engine was the worst part. I pulled the steering shaft to give me more room to work which helped (I also wanted to grind that down a little more since it is hitting the headers as well.

The lines came tied up and it was a bit of a puzzle figuring out which end goes where. The good thing is the parts that go into the ABS block and rubber lines are bubble flares, and the part that is meant to go into the union to join the 2 sections is a double flare. So that took some of the guess work out.

Installing them has been a bit of a challenge, a hoist would make things 1000000x easier. I discovered you have to turn them the right way, feed one side through the cross member bar while being ontop of the exhaust first, pull it down, then feed it further back that it needs to go so that you an route the front up. A second hand would have been useful vs me rolling out from under the car, going up top, moving stuff out of the way to pull the line up (which turned it and made me have to start over again).

Nonetheless I got one section installed. Next time I am over there I'll join the union up (which is located about where the end of the back of the transmission is) and run the first full line to the back axle.

The rear axle lines seem to show like they will fit well. Mine may need a bit of massaging because of the Ford 8.8 rear end and the rabbit ears I left on the diff seem to be right where one of my connections needs to be. That's not a huge deal as I figured this may be the case as I had run my own lines before. It looks like I have some line to play with so I can make it work. I may need to just bend it a bit and I have a nice tool to do so.

One of the back lines seems to have a flare nut that is larger than the other 3 lines which makes me nervous. I found one of my old russel SS lines and it fits, but not sure why one is bigger than the others. I am hoping they didn't send a wrong piece and I can't remember what the 4 channel setup looks like at the moment to really picture it all in my head.

I hope to have another update next week or so.

[ssms5411]

Nice Mike, sounds like a pain without a lift.