On my way home from work just now some kid decided to cross the road in front of me without looking. He had what appeared to be a latex glove to his mouth. It seemed to require more attention to blow it up then he felt necessary to apply to protecting his own life.

Anyways, when I slammed on my brakes, instead of screeching tires, I got "PHHHSSHHHH" and little to no brakes.

I nursed it the next mile home using a combination of engine braking and e-brake. Oozed into the garage, got out to see the trail of brake fluid following my path and a puddle quickly starting to form under the driver side rear door.

So I popped one of the hard lines running to the rear brakes, it seems. Assuming a "patch" isn't safe enough to consider, what'* the best way to fix this? Are parts stores likely to be able to get these hard lines?

Not likely. Either a dealer or a wrecker. :(

they wont have them if you want pre-bent. but any parts store should have straight brake lines. they are easy to bend. a bender is only like 3 bucks. and you dont have to replace the whole thing. you can cut and flare the ends of the existing lines. and use the required double (maybe bubble) flared hydraulic unions.

Here is my little brake line job from a few months ago... http://www.bonnevilleclub.com/forum/...028499#1028499

It was a total nightmare. Be prepared to spend a little more money then just the line just in case. I needed the whole line, wheel cylinder, and proportioning valve. Totaled about $75. You might get lucky and the line come right off no problem, but I wasn't that lucky.

You will likely have the "european" style flare, not the standard style, and IIRC 6 mm lines from the proportioning valves back.

I just bought the straight hard lines from Autozone and rented the bender tool. Most of the larger bends I just did by hand with no problem, but some tighter ones needed the bender. I just measured the lines on the car and got as close as I could with two seperate lines and a coupler. I ended up about 5" to long but I just made some extra bends and a slightly different route and it has worked perfectly ever since


***EDIT***

You won't find a pre-bent line at the dealer either... I looked Wrecker is probably not a good idea either, you will likely run into the same problems very quickly, IF you are lucky enough to find one that is even close to re-useable.

So what happened to the kid?

He ended up being the bleeder I mentioned in the title.

Ok, not really. He got out of the way real quick when he saw the car coming from the other direction. I don't think he even saw me until he got to the other sidewalk.

I can't tell if it'* coming out of the rusted proportioning valve or the rusted line. But I guess I'll be replacing this whole area.

You shouldn't have lost all the brakes if only one line broke. Were the brakes really so bad that you needed to use the emergency?

Good luck getting that line out of the valve, I had no such luck.. hopefully your luck is better then mine

That valve is a dealer only item, and cost me $45