'97 1500 rear brake hard line burst/rotted through/broke

1401 Views 19 Replies 13 Participants Last post by Chris, Dec 3, 2005

ZacD

Discussion Starter · Dec 1, 2005

I think I've seen Mr. Joe indicate, in some other thread at some other time, that the hard line, for the brakes, going to the rear, has a tendency to rub through/rot out/burst. Perhaps I'm wrong, in my thinking I've see Joe talk about it, but I'll send him a PM anyway. Anyhow, this occured to me, this evening, about 20 minutes ago, as I approached a traffic light about a block from the house. I was slowing down, applying the brakes, when all the sudden the pedal went to the floorboard and the brake and ABS light came on. :shock: Not a pleasant feeling, as the brakes were pretty much doing nothing. Luckily the light turned green and the truck I was about to mate my truck with accelerated away...and I limped home the remainder of the distance. The plastic guard covering the gastank is all shiny, wet and black, and has brake fluid dripping from it, whereas the master cylinder is dry, as are the front hoses & calipers, and the rear. Deductive reasoning would lead me to believe the hardline, at the frame, has shot cr*ps. Anybody ever have this experience and fixed it? How hard of an ordeal was it to fix, if you did it yourself? Anybody know of a "kit" to fix this, supposedly, not altogether infrequent occurence in these trucks, or do you have to replace a length, altogether, of the hard line?

Looks like I'll be riding the motorscooter to work, fer sure, the next few days.

I knew I should have got rid of this Dodge... :wall:

1 - 20 of 20 Posts

JasonB

· #2 · Dec 1, 2005

yup, it can fail inside the frame next tothe gas tank. not realy sure why it does, but it does.

mudishome

· #3 · Dec 1, 2005

Zac, i serviced my brakes over turkey day break. my brake pedal has been "mushy" for a while now, and i at first attributed this to air in the lines. while i was doin the brake job, i bled the piss outta my brakes 5 or so times. my pedal was still mushy, so i took it in to a friends shop at home and had them bleed them with the machine. for once in my life, i had done something right, there was no air in the lines. come to find out, my master cylinder has been going south. hence why you havent seen my truck around town lately. just thought i would throw that idea out there for ya
edit:cant spell for {expletive}

ZacD

Discussion Starter · #4 · Dec 1, 2005

I certainly hope it doesn't happen to anybody else, and I'm glad I wasn't anywhere else, going faster than I was. If that would have occured on something like an interstate off-ramp, it would have been REAL ugly.

trap

· #5 · Dec 1, 2005

i just replaced mine today. :rotfl: :rotfl: it sucks.i left on the front part of the line and spliced a 5 foot piece in from pepboys.you can not get the prebent line from dodge.ive tried for 2 weeks to get one.no one has it.i can take some pics and stuff tomorrow in the daylight if you want.it wraps around the frame in the front thats why i didnt want to try to make a whole new one.

ZacD

Discussion Starter · #6 · Dec 1, 2005

On 2005-11-30 16:37, trap wrote:
i just replaced mine today. :rotfl: :rotfl: it sucks.i left on the front part of the line and spliced a 5 foot piece in from pepboys.you can not get the prebent line from dodge.ive tried for 2 weeks to get one.no one has it.i can take some pics and stuff tomorrow in the daylight if you want.it wraps around the frame in the front thats why i didnt want to try to make a whole new one.

Yeah, if you don't mind, I'd definitely appreciate a few photos to see what you did...just to see what I'm about to get involved with/be cussing. It was dark out and I had a little LED penlight deal, so I didn't take a real good gander at the whole deal. This sucks.

trap

· #7 · Dec 1, 2005

o ya if you want to splice it you will need a pipe cutter and a flairing tool.just lucky that i work with hydrolicks and the company has some nice little ones.

: also the line is 3/16 and the piece i got was 60 inches.it was 5 bucks

djgaston

· #8 · Dec 1, 2005

Zac, you need to quit running... your leg muscles are too strong. :lol:

b.lee

· #9 · Dec 1, 2005

On 2005-11-30 16:30, The Boss wrote:
yup, it can fail inside the frame next tothe gas tank. not realy sure why it does, but it does.

happend in the same spot to me inside the frame rail by the tank, luckily i was parked and just started it up. hit the brakes the pedal hit the floor, and I heard like a 'pissing' sound hitting the snow. (didnt shut door yet)

must be a common problem then eh.

redturtle

· #10 · Dec 1, 2005

Has anyone had problems with other lines once they replaced that line. My ex father in law has his hard line go on him replaced it then his two front rubber lines went after that. I thouht it had to do with the hard line expanding some due to being weak and once that was replaced it went to the next weakest spot. which was the rubber lines.

DirrrtyBlonde

· #11 · Dec 1, 2005

want me to fix it for you? with all my brake problems, i'm a pro now.

:

ZacD

Discussion Starter · #12 · Dec 1, 2005

On 2005-11-30 17:45, DirrrtyBlonde wrote:
want me to fix it for you? with all my brake problems, i'm a pro now. :

:roll:

Is that why you rearended another car a few weeks ago? :flipoff:

Per a PM I received from Joseph, my line of thinking is parallel with his...if this is a known problem or a not uncommon occurance with these trucks, I'd think Chrysler would have a recall due to possible severe safety hazards caused by this. Basically, I had little to no brakes when the line popped. As I stated, had it been on a highway or something like an interstate off-ramp, the results could have been much worse.

Tani1500

· #13 · Dec 1, 2005

mine just did this a few weeks ago. real pain in the a$$ to fix. I hate droping the gas tank. if you wana see i have pic of what it looks like before you go in there if you really want to see them. have fun! :roll:

Tani1500

· #14 · Dec 1, 2005

oh and i would do what i did and make it in a 2 lenghts so if it should ever go out again you only have to do half of it.

trap

· #15 · Dec 1, 2005

4

i also forgot to mention you will need a inveted flare tubing nut,and an if union for splicing.the union that is on the line is 3/8in.and the bolts that hold the line brackets onto the frame ae 1/2in.im sure most people could figure this out but im throwing as much info as possible out there.here is the union that the front part of the line goes into.
just fwd of the transmission linkage.
[img=500x375]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y116/runem440/IMG_2241.jpg[/img]

then it goes acrosed the frame above the lca mount.the has some bends in it to go around the xmember
[img=500x375]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y116/runem440/IMG_2246.jpg[/img]

this is where i splice it just fwd of the gas tank.i did it there because thas were the line i bought eneded when conected to the rear union.
[img=500x375]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y116/runem440/IMG_2245.jpg[/img]

this were it connects in the rear.its just above the bumpstop.as you can see it connects to the fwd side.
[img=500x375]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y116/runem440/IMG_2248.jpg[/img]

i didnt take off my gastank for this.i just pushed the line down through the frame and bent it as needed for the rear union.if you bent if just rite you can get it to not touch anything.with some creative tooling(really long crow bars) and help from a friend you can pop it into the mounts behind the gas tank.

:bigthumb:

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ZacD

Discussion Starter · #16 · Dec 1, 2005

Thanks for the pics. :bigthumb: Much appreciated.

I called the local Dodge stealership (D&E Dodge) and talked with a guy in the service department as well as some, supposed, mechanic who has been with them for 10+ years and they both stated they've never even heard of such a thing occuring before on a Dodge truck, BUT...they have heard of it on Fords and GMs. :roll: Go figure. :nono: I guess that's their ploy to make me feel so much better about this quality Chrysler/Dodge product that the brakes just failed on.

Interestingly enough, I talked to a guy I know that owns/manages the Meineke Muffler/car care shop off of Market Street here in Wilmington (I've had them stick a converter on the truck and a couple of different mufflers), and he said they've done about a dozen '94-'01 Dodges that have had the same problem. Hmm...the neutral party (Meineke) says they've seen this problem with some amount of frequency, whereas the biased (Dodge) party claims they've never seen or heard of it before. Blah, blah, blah. The guy at Meineke says they do it about like the way you've done it, it seems and says he'd do it for about $60. I think I might just have AAA take the truck over there and pay them to deal with it...for $60, I'd just as soon not fight the bastard.

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jroutlaw0803

· #17 · Dec 1, 2005

:withstupid: hell thats worth it just not to have to test for leaks and bleed it by yourself,id go that route myself,,but i cant stand working on brake issues ive done it so many times,,Hell ive got to throw a new brake booster on the bronco saturday :wall: :cuss:

hieneken49

· #18 · Dec 2, 2005

theres always the parking break when you have no regular brakes!

hamr26

· #19 · Dec 2, 2005

I adjusted my drums this summer and within a week, the line burst. It was rotted in the same spot you listed. I first replaced the rear most section only, but after another front leak, went from master cyl. to rear axle. It is not that hard of a job.

Chris

· #20 · Dec 3, 2005

Same story here...mine busted behind the fuel tank from being so rusty/corroded. Luckily I was already under the truck working on something and noticed wet spot...I pushed on the line and it crumbled and started leaking. Luckily didn't happen while driving...so I just spliced a 5 ft piece in it's place behind the tank, didn't have to remove it and even left the old line there. The rest of the line looks fine all the way up the the master cylinder. Im sure it got so bad because of all the mud and salt that collects inside the framerail and piles around the line eating through it.

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