brakes went out, need help

the brake lines are shot in my 95 riv, i was wondering if any of u guys could help me out and let me know what parts i need to replace all the brakes lines in the car from front to back, connectors, etc. and what size brake line i need. help much appreciated, thanks

Are you able to bend up brake lines from generic tubing? If not, it would probably be easiest to buy pre-bent parts from a parts store, or the dealer.

Have you ever double flared tubing? It's pretty tricky for a first timer and I wouldn't recommend that route. If all of the brake lines are shot... I don't know what I'd do.

Sorry, that's not very helpful. I'd go after it myself, for my own car, but I'd be starting blind (with tubing experience though). Bring a couple of fittings down to the parts store and piece it together. Another problem is many parts stores don't carry all the necessary fittings and line sections.

Do you have a tubing bender? And lots of practice with it?

Generally, it's not that expensive to have an independent mechanic replace the hard lines in a brake system. Make some phone calls. Popint is there are not that many hard lines on the Riv that are under the car and subject to road spalsh/abrasion. You may find in teh Yellow Pages one or more independents who claim to specialize in brake line repair.

If you want, you could get a tubing bender and a tubing flarer, and some scrap tubing, and get the hang of it yourself by practicing on the scraps.

On ROckauto.com, under EXTRAS, a tubing cutter is less than $5.00 and a tubing bender is less than $15. A *nice* tubing bender is $23.00.

Problem is, *flaring* the tubing is a 'fine art' - consider using alloy tubing, see the web site http://www.fedhillusa.com/ for details. If I was replacing brake lines I would consider the Fedhill offering.

You can also find tools and tubing at http://www.inlinetube.com/

Good luck

Albertj

Thanks for the good info, guys.

I've bent and fixed a brake line with a double flair tool once. It does require some patience, but it works. I don't remember if I used stainless tubing for it, but it would seem like a good idea to do so.

double flaring is an art, double flaring stainless is very hard to do without cracking, but can be done with some practice. I used to build machinery and did some plumbing with stainless lines 1/4-3/8, it's a real bastard to double flare properly.

Good luck whatever your decision...

thanks for the help everyone, i found someone who could do the job for me for like 60 bucks, so it wasnt as bad as i thought it might be