marc_w

If anyone out there is thinking of upgrading their brake lines... for the love of god, DON'T. I wasted 8 hours today messing with this crap. IT IS NOT FUN.

I got the front's done easy enough. Piece of cake.

I had problems out back, and scratched the whole back set of lines after 3 hours of making up new swears and getting DOT 3 in my eyes, ears, nose mouth, armpits, etc. etc. I was ready to throw the lines in the woods. I figure the for-sale section will be better.

I just blew through two small bottles, and one and a half LARGE bottles of brake fluid. I still have air in the lines SOMEWHERE. The pedal will bottom out if I step on the pedal hard enough. This is of course much worse than what I started with.

I am so much more than just angry right now.

Anyone have any tricks on how to get my pedal back?

I've been doing the typical two-man thing. Pump, hold pedal, crack bleeder, repeat. My fingers are wrinkled from all the brake fluid today. I'm sick of this.

Should I start cracking all of the fittings? Any help at all is appreciated.

5.3_RCStepside

Start with the brake that is furthest from the master cylinder. So most of teh time that is the passenger side back. bleed them till the air is gone. then go to the back driverside and do teh same thing, then teh passenger side front, then driver side front. i know this sounds dumb but this is a trick i learned from a very skilled mechanic. it works everytime. to make sure you get all teh air out after you do all the sides then do them again to make sure it is all out. but it shoudl all be out after you have done the one rotation.

hope this helps.

marc_w

Yeah, that's what I've been doing.... I made three trips around the truck doing this so far...

I don't see any air coming out at all, but still the pedal is very mushy...

The fluid coming out is not crystal clear, but it's not nasty either. It's 20K miles old - I'm not sure what it should look like.

I've read in the f-body brake section, that I should try it opposite - closest line first, farthest line last?

styleandspeed

I have always done farthest to closest and it has always worked for me. Double check all of your connections and make sure there are no leaks.

5.3_RCStepside

Only thing i could think of is you have a leak. I will do osme thinking about it while i write my tech writing paper and if i can think of anything else i will post back.

MacADaYear

I changed mine and had nothing like the experience you had. It was very easy and turned out great, I would recomend it to anyone.

Did you drain the reservoir?

Also I used a power bleeder form Motul and that thing was awesome. Screw the cap to the reservoir and just bleed from each wheel.

Also since you are changing fluid and must be looking for performance, why didnt you go with like a DOT4 or DOT5 fluid? The one I used is compatable with any DOT3 so any emergencies could be handled.

Also, my pedal SUCKED the first couple days but then got nice and firm later, maybe you just need to wait a while. When I first got in my truck after the swap I was freaking out because I thought something was wrong, but it definitly got better and now is awesome

marc_w

Thanks guys.

Yeah, so I took the truck for a little test drive, and ended up getting some more brake fluid.

On the road, the softness was definitely not as noticeable. After a few emergency braking jobs, the pedal firmed up pretty good like Mac's did. The air must have been released/pushed along/whatever when I stood on the pedal. From what the braking forum says, the ABS motor has been known to hold a bit of air. When it does the 8-or-whatever-mph self test and cycles, it may release any air. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me (as it's still in the system), but I'll take it.

Brake fluid: I don't know... I just did it all on a whim. I've been tripping over these lines for months now. I wasn't ambitious enough to look into any other brake fluids to see what was compatible or what wasn't.

I'm going to get that pressure bleeder thing this week.

The rear brake lines - I need to go in and chase(?) the upper center connection of the braded line. It's a little too "tight" for the stock frame-mounted threaded piece to bite into the threads there. It kept wanting to cross-thread, or it would start to bite in and it would just pop right off. Boy did that **** me right off. I worked on it for about three hours with that line doing some twisted form of chinese water torture. "GM brake fluid torture"? Drip, drip, drip, drip. The tap and die set I have stopped like one thread size before what I needed.

Second problem - maybe these were made for drum rears? There is that kinked hard-line in the two rear side hoses. My disk rears need that to be straight in order to work. The stock side lines are also using a block style banjo like the fronts - not the old round style. I need to get a tube-bender to see if I can pull it out straight. Maybe I won't mess with it and I'll just get rid of them. Not sure.

I didn't drain the res. at all... The front lines were only off for about 90 seconds each.

I did run through and make sure all connections were snug.

So, after I've calmed down a bit here - I do have to say that even though I only replaced the two front lines, there IS a noticeable improvement. There is more bite to the pedal, and I was surprised at how much the trucks reaction time to braking improved.

MacADaYear

You might want to double check that thread sizes. We had to send 1 kit back to Earls because they made 1 fitting the wrong size.

Dude ... HOLD ON DONT BEND ANYTHING. I thought the same thing but trust me they work the way they are. The stocks are block style but just angle the SS lines inward and they will work fine. I definitly dont recoment bending anything.

marc_w

RIGHT after I posted this, I though, "Gee, I wonder if I could have just angled them in..." I was too caught up with the center-line to pay much attention to the sides.

The thread size looked correct. I do recall the post were someone had trouble with this connection, and I had it in the back of my head the whole time. With the hoses side by side, there was no visual difference between the two. For a while, I even had trouble starting the nut back into the stock line.

Mark Campbell

A couple of tips: 1. You must use a pressure bleeder on the ABS to get all of the air out. 2. The way the bleeder screws are made, you must open them at least 1 full turn, otherwise air will remained trapped in the bleeder. 3. Run a length of clear tygon (sp?) tubing from the brake bleeder to a clean jar of brake fluid if you try any pumping of the pedal- that way you can check for any air bubbles in the line. When the stream flows solid without air bubbles tighten the bleeder. It's a piece of cake with a pressure bleeder.

PS. You do want to start at the farthest bleeder from the master cylinder!