When you just can't stop.

I was driving up Little White Mountain in Kelowna B.C. and I over extended the brake line on the passenger's side front. I believe that it happened just after this picture was taken but it is impossible to know for sure.
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Since I was driving uphill I did not use my brakes to come to a stop about 5 minutes later. We met up with some other people and after talking to them for a while we decided to head up to the top of the mountain. I backed out onto the trail and I stepped on the brakes. My foot went right to the floor, right now!!! I managed to stop and I pulled back off the trail. This is what I found.
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We plugged what was left of the brake line with a screw and bled the brakes. Since I had lots of pedal now we continued to the top of the mountain, no point cutting the trip short. Not really scary but I was very lucky that it happened on the way up not on the way down. It was interesting stepping on the brakes and having the truck do a hard left. Not to mention that I was over 300 miles from home and it was a long weekend. Since there was no way to get a direct replacement for my extended stainless steel brake hose I mickey moused something together and was able to drive all the way home without incedent. I now carry brake hoses in my spare parts box.

 

[chad]

Similar problem

Paul, I know how you feel. When I first switched to braided lines on my truck I loved them, better petal feel, less effort, then the next day after I put them on I started to loose pedal presure, in the middle of a busy intersectin! Luckily I was able to pump the pedal enough to slow down before I attatched my hood to the car in front of me! Upon closer inspection both of the front brake lines leaked at the crimp. I called the supplier and they express mailed another set to me the same day. The hoses were Pro Comp, which are made with Earl's parts. About a week after I put the new hoses on and had no problems with them I was pulling into my freinds house and cut the corner a little too sharp, which ment that my front wheel hit the curb and not the driveway. This bump combine with full steering lock kicked the tire into the brake line and severed it at the caliper. The only problem was that my friend has a large concrete retaining wall at the end of his driveway. If it had not been for some very fast foot work and a good emergency brake I would have had to fix more than another brake line!
Anyways, I went to a local hydraulics shop and they set me up with the parts to fix not only my one brake line but the other two which were leaking! Because of liability I had to secure the screw-on fitting but they were kind enough to cut the old ends off and set up the new ends for free! The best part is that I have a full set of braided hoses and it cost about 3.00 per hose.

 

[Anime]

hose

how much lift/flex and what tire size you running? This is my only worry with super articulation..I wanna go with braided hose anyway but not if its gonna leak and that...

[Edited by Anime4x4 on 12-27-2000 at 02:00 PM]

 

[Paul Gagnon]

When that happened I had 5.5" of lift. I think a large part of the reason for the failure was because I had tied the hose too tightly. I had a bracket that allowed for movement but it broke and I hadn't fixed it yet so I used tie wraps to hold the hose in place. I now have 6.5" of lift in the front and I have relocated the mounting point for the front brake hoses just to be sure. I will be adding another 1/2"-1" to the front soon and I may change the mounting location again but simply for esthetics, not for length issues.