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Replacing fuel and brake hard lines

SoopaCooga

Veteran CEG'er
Joined
Jun 19, 2001
Messages
662
Location
Fairfax, VA
Last weekend, I moved from Georgia to Virginia. I thought it would be wise to tow the Cougar on a trailer. Unfortunately, the car did not quite clear the wheel guide on the passenger side. The hard lines for fuel and brakes got caught up and kinked.

I'm wondering if anybody has any thoughts on how to replace the kinked parts of the lines? Tubing and compression fittings? OEM parts? I'm afraid the dealer won't be able to get me new lines even if I would pay for $100s for them. Anybody got a parts car?!?

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There are three options worth considering as far as I can tell:

1. Order OEM lines and hope that they can be fitted without disassembling much of the car. ($300)
2. Have a professional line shop fix it. ($???)
3. Purchase straight tubing and compression fittings and attempt a DIY fix. ($50)
 
I just had 30+ feet of break lines replaced on my towncar. it ran me a little over 300 for the work. wasnt a big deal and I had it back same day.

sorry to hear about the towing accident, that sucks.
 
Ford does not sell the brake lines. mine are all rusted behind the tank so i asked Bill Jenkins about it. to get to the back sections you will have to drop the tank and/or the rear subframe.
 
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We just had the lines for both my wife's toyota truck and my daughter's 89 cougar rust out. I just went with a local mechanic to fix both. I was never tht good at bending my own, they ran about $100 each car, they replaced both back brake lines. I'm not sure if he bent his own, or where he got the lines.
 
anybody know where i can find an underbody photo of an SVT? i want to check that the lines are the same for the SVT as they are for the Cougar.
 
For fuel lines, I will use a tube-cutter to remove the damaged section, and use a flare tool to create some lips. If the section is small, perhaps a few inches, I'll just replace it with rubber fuel line and small stainless steel T-bolt clamps. That shouldn't cost more than $30 I think.

If the section is long, then I would follow much the same procedure; however, I'd match up new metal tubing to take up as much of the gap as I could. This would be for damaged sections ranging over foot or so. I'd look for a good way to secure the line as well - many times, if another line is in good shape, you can just use a hand-full of thick zip-tips. It works well! I'll create lips at the ends of the new pipe and the pieces of old pipe as well, then again use rubber fuel grade hose as the union.

The biggest concern is to NEVER ever use an angle grinder, saw or other device which can cause sparks. Tubbing cutters are very cheap ($10 or less for a nice one) and safe to use, and every hardware store carries them.

For Hydraulic lines, I use an angle grinder with a thin blade to cut the bad piece of tubing off. After the cut, I'll try to smoothen out the cut as much as possible. Make sure you have a GOOD flaring tool. The rental tool from autozone works well if you are careful with it. I am sort of hesitant to offer this advice, because it's not difficult to make a pin-hole leak which could lead to brake failure. If you are slow and careful though, it's easy to avoid damaging the line and easy to make a smooth flare for the union.

Make sure that you get brake unions that have a nipple on the inside of them, so that the new flare of the brake line is mated on the inside of the union and sealed very tight. If you cut the old brake lines to a length that is common for brake lines, then you can save your self half of the cutting and flaring trouble. I think that they come typically in 9" increments. It might be 6" though. Don't get European bubble flairs, get the same style as stock. This will make mating much easier!

A lot of the unions at Autozone are not designed well IMHO, but you can find a good one if you look for it. Murrays and Napa keep the best ones in stock. Brakes, much like the fuel system, is something you never skimp out on and try to $cut corners$.
 
If the section is small, perhaps a few inches, I'll just replace it with rubber fuel line and small stainless steel T-bolt clamps. That shouldn't cost more than $30 I think.

Big risk in this with lines under fuel pressure. I'd strongly advise against it!
 
yes they are identical.

actually, they have different part numbers, as pointed out to me by Professor Nimnul @ NECO.

can't buy the part from Ford anyway. computer says there is one in stock, but Ford won't sell it.

i am having it professionally done. hopefully they do it right the first time.
 
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