Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 99-2007 Silverado brake line rust

Keeping the underside clean makes a huge difference.
Ever since I started driving we Baja'ed our trucks in saltwater marshes and the like, we always ended the day with a
thorough washing to prevent rust.

Now days, living gulf front we deal with occasional saltwater floods, parking high works if you know it's coming but heading out when there is just a few inches of saltwater on the road is common.

Clean them or lose them to rust.



What we've always done that is easy and works well has been to put a oscillating lawn sprinkler under our rigs and just let it run moving it and changing direction from time to time.
A couple hours of sprinkler time seems to be pretty effective.

I'd imagine with frozen winter conditions when these de-icing chemicals are being applied to your roads taking advantage of the first warm day would be wise.

Keeping accumulation points clear of mud, dirt, debris can take a little hand work but other than that it's pretty easy and very effective.

As always an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

That's a good idea. I never thought of a sprinkler for underside.

I had it happen on two trucks!!
I am done with GM.

My SIL has two ford trucks , I don't know the years but they both had to have their brake lines replaced because of rust.. he sold one after repairing it, but still has a dump truck.. with rusted lines he stopped driving it..

You are in eastern Tn. I am nearby in western NC.
I drive Nissan pickups and I get five years on 'em and they rust through.

Two years ago I was selling a rust bucket 4WD Frontier, I was driving up to the Ingles store to show it to the buyer, and in that five minute drive the brake line rusted in two and brake fluid blew all over the road, and I had no brakes. Had to tell the buyer he couldn't drive the truck. Tricky driving around with no brakes I had to use the manual transmission and the emergency brake to slow down.

The shop guys tell me that the salt on the snow was bad enough, but 12 years ago they started using calcium chloride as well and that really rusts the vehicles out.

You can buy complete prebent stainless steel line kits with all the correct fittings already in all the right places. Took myself and my 2 brother in laws about 2 hours to swap every single line and hose on my 2004 2500HD. Now I never have to worry about it again

https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/p...8M-exaYHtwaApe7EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Theres the one for my truck. best $98 you'll ever spend

I'd recommend that as well.

I tried to find prefab lines but my truck is so old they don't make them.


My wife was driving my Toyota when a brake line went out, she went thru an intersection red light. Lucky she wasn't hurt. Like mentioned above the brake line goes over the gas tank so in my attempts to replace the brake line I broke a rusty fuel line coming from the tank, so I just ended up taking the bed off, replacing all the brake and fuel lines from the cab back with coated lines and then sprayed everything down with rust converter paint. I just replaced everything I could to make sure I didn't have to do this again at least for another 7 years .

Happened to my '06 a few years ago. Pedal went right to the floo r.

I bought a flaring kit and a roll of tubing so I can make my own replacement lines. On a lot of vehicles it is nearly impossible to follow the original routing without major disassembly.

It always irritates me that they can mandate BS stuff like back up cameras, but not stainless brake lines.

Jerry

04 Tahoe
Pulling out from a weekend camping trip pulling a 10' trailer with canoe and 4-5 kayaks along with other various items.
No brakes. Had ALL the lines replaced the year before when one rusted through.
Have it towed home, buddy[former mechanic] was camping with us said we'll fix on your carport.
Every line HAD been replaced except one short junction on the rear-the hardest to get to and we had to let it soak for 24 hours to keep from breaking the junction box.
Shop that supposedly replaced ALL lines had been sold in between, new owner said "too bad".
Pre-made lines only come in full kits so we made one.
Very lucky that we didn't get out of the campground.

My 2005 GMC Sierra brake lines blew (in 2017) through the rust when I hit the brakes trying to brake slowing for a turn. I was lucky that the speed limit was around 35. I was able to hit the emergency brake and stop in the turn lane...some 5 or 6 truck lengths past my turn

A simple emergency fix is to crimp the end of the brake line where it broke with a vice grips.You will have brakes on three wheels then.Enough to get you home or to a service station.

My crown vic has never had a working emergency/ parking brake. I just now figured out how they work on 4 wheel disc brakes. Combination rotor drum set up. Now I've got another project. I'm so behind the time on automotive tech it's sad. I miss the days of single ignition coils , distributors, & carbs. At least I knew what was going on.

I replaced mine on my '02 before one let go. Glad I did, great piece of mind.

All car makes have problems, but give GM credit, they are the most consistent