Brake line check time!

Topic: Brake line check time! (Read 2685 times) previous topic - next topic

Brake line check time!

June 22, 2005, 09:08:35 AM

Just a friendly bit of advice guys...

I'm the second person I know of this month that's had total brake failure on the highway. I lucked out and didn't lose the car, but probably would not have faired as well if I didn't have the 5 speed in and the ability to shift where I needed to.

The cars are getting old and depending on where you are, lines are getting rusty. Take a few minutes to give your lines a check and make sure everything's ok. Mine rotted and split. Sure beats the "OH $HIT!" factor you get when you lose em going 60 on the highway in to stopped traffic...

Re: Brake line check time!

Reply #1 – June 22, 2005, 09:12:25 AM

I had that happen once on my black car. I had a line blow. I just shifted it into 1st on the auto tranny. Lucky I didn blow the tranny or the engine.

Re: Brake line check time!

Reply #2 – June 22, 2005, 01:08:36 PM

Happened to me in both of my 87 xr7's, first time I was cruising to work and it went out doing around 45. Second one was the rubber line blew apart when I slamed on my brakes about a week later.

Re: Brake line check time!

Reply #3 – June 22, 2005, 01:10:59 PM

I hope mine don't fail when I cross the 1/4 mile mark doin 110 MPH at the track :D

Re: Brake line check time!

Reply #4 – June 22, 2005, 02:21:04 PM

I had that exact problem last year, though it was just after I had gotten off the highway. Everything was fine till I pulled into a parking lot, when I hit the drive apr0n my pedal went straight to the floor. Luckily I was already going slow enough that the E-brake could do it's job. Just outta personal opinion, I believe my car saved my life that day.

Re: Brake line check time!

Reply #5 – June 22, 2005, 02:36:21 PM

This one time (at band camp), I was driving down the street in my old black '86 mindin' my own bidness. I hit a lil' ol' bump, and suddenly the car just started lurching. I'm like, WTF is that all about? It felt like the brakes were applying themselves at random. And it didn't do it all the time, just occasionally. I didn't have time (rather, didn't make the time) to check it out. Next day, I'm driving through a town that is notorious for tight lanes, phone poles right out at the curb, and no room to maneuver. Oh yeah, lots of traffic lights too. Light's turning red, I push the brake pedal...goes to the floor. Would have been great if I'd been first at the light, but nooooooo, another car in front of me. I had maybe half a second to make a decision. E-brake worked fine (thank God the roads were dry). I nursed it over to a parking lot, called AAA, had it towed to my buddy's shop.

It was not the brake line. When I hit the initial bump, for some reason one of the caliper slider pins sheared in half. The occasional lurching/applying of brakes was the pad rotating out of the left front caliper and getting jammed inside the rim. I put a nice groove in that rim...funny though, it always balanced out to 0 after that. Never needed another weight again.

When I lost brakes, I literally lost a brake pad in the middle of that town. So here I was, full fluid, good lines...no brake pads. Pretty messed up IMO. At that point I was soooooo glad to have gone through the trouble to make the e-brake system work with the TC rear end. Otherwise I'd have done a lot of damage to other cars that day, not to mention trashed my own car.

I don't really have a point, other than wanting to share the story.

Er, yes I do...get your e-brake system working properly! It literally can save your life, if not your ass. Oh, and don't be lazy like I used to be. That will come back to haunt you.

Re: Brake line check time!

Reply #6 – June 22, 2005, 03:12:22 PM

I didnt even think to use the e-brake. I am dumb. That reminds me, I oughta see if the ebrake works on my new daily driver, the 87 v-6. I will post pics sooner or later.

Re: Brake line check time!

Reply #7 – June 22, 2005, 03:18:01 PM

A similar thing happened to me once. I had driven an hour back from Norfolk doing 75 or so. Less than a mile from my house I hit a nasty pothole and KERKLUNK! I pulled over slowly (brakes still worked). I looked everywhere under the car didnt see any thing broken but it had made such a horrible noise I knew it was something. So I drove it the few blocks to my house and parked it. Pulled the wheel off and the caliper pin had worked its way out. The caliper was moving like Eric's. It didnt gouge the wheel though. It could have happened anywhere on the trip home but thankfully it happened near my house. So the moral of my story is - make sure you torque those bolts correctly next time you have the caliper off. I mean, its only your brakes. Who needs those? :hick:

Re: Brake line check time!

Reply #8 – June 22, 2005, 04:38:26 PM

I had a brake pad separate once in my old Nissan truck while coming down a steep hill toward a busy street with a river on the other side. The lining came off the pad, which caused the pedal to drop to the floor. In an absolute state of panic I reefed onto the hand brake (the busy road was approaching quickly) and ended up going across the road and into the river arse first. Luckily nothing hit me, and there was no damage and nobody was hurt (except I think I aged 20 years in those few seconds).

Losing your brakes sucks ass.

Re: Brake line check time!

Reply #9 – June 22, 2005, 05:39:38 PM

Since we're all telling these campfire stories, here's mine. It was the worst ice storm I'd ever seen. It had been raining all day and began to freeze up in the early afternoon. Stopping in this was hard enough as it was. I was pulling up to bank ATM and I hit my brakes only to slide on the ice. Naturally, I pushed harder on the brakes hoping to stop faster, not the case, of course. Then my pedal went all the way to the floor, my front hose popped like zit, spraying fluid all over the place. I used the e-brake to drive back home on pure ice. Every stop took great concentration to avoid fishtailing and losing control. Replaicing brake hoses turned out to be another parts fiasco, but I finally got them installed. In the process of bleeding the brakes, the rear line decided to pop, just to torment me. I gave up on doing it myself and took it somewhere to have all the lines replaced, just because.

Re: Brake line check time!

Reply #10 – June 22, 2005, 10:21:51 PM

Luckly I don't have to worry about rusty lines, but I'm sure gonna be checking the slider pins before I go down the race track again... They had to retreive a Camero out of the farmers field at the end of the track last week...

Re: Brake line check time!

Reply #11 – June 23, 2005, 12:52:56 AM

I had a wheel cylinder just decide to go on my Cougar. Pedal kept going further and further to the floor every time I pressed the pedal.

Re: Brake line check time!

Reply #12 – June 23, 2005, 09:36:15 AM

Story time rules! It keeps me entertained at work :D

Re: Brake line check time!

Reply #13 – June 23, 2005, 12:34:00 PM

I was on my lunch break at work one day and was going to grab something to eat when I hit a bump in the road. At the end of the road was a red light so I started to put my foot on the brake and the pedal was hard as a rock. Would not press down at all. I had to push with all I could to get the car to stop. Luckily I started slowing down in plenty of time or I would have rolled through the intersection. When I popped the hood later to check things out I noticed the main vacuum tee on the firewall next to the brake booster had broken. So I had no vacuum assist on anything. I fixed it as best as I could with duct tape until I got another one from a TC and installed it. That was scary though. These cars feel very very heavy when you can't stop them!

Re: Brake line check time!

Reply #14 – June 23, 2005, 02:11:16 PM

I can ride my bike real fast.