I was stopping today at a red light and all of a sudden the pedal sunk to the floor, and lost all pressure. I let off the pedal and then began to pump them, then on the third pump the rears locked up completly for a split second then broke loose and then locked up agian and let loose. I ran out of road and ended up somewhat stopping in the middle of one of the busiest inersections in my area, and almost got whacked by three cars. I jammed it in reverse and into a corner gas station, and found a busted brake line at the front passenger caliper. Im not filmiar with brakes, but it looks as if the rubber boot looking line jsut dissconnected from a male connector on/around the claiper. Brake fluid was everywhere and thank God for triple A, the truck is now sitting in front of my house, waiting for service to open tommorw morning. How could this happen to where i have no brakes what so ever, if it wasnt for quick thinking i could of possibly not been here to whine about my problem. If anyone has had this problem, or has any idea how this could happen let me know, the truck is a 1997 F-150 4x4 with 87,900 miles on it iam second owner and dont know if a brake job ahs ever been done.

 

You drive a ten year old truck and don't know if the thing has ever had a brake job?? You can't be serious.
Did you bother to ask for service records when you bought it?
Did you have the sense to have the truck checked out before you bought it?
Did you check the oil before you drove it home?
If no to either of the former questions, chalk it up to "life's lessons"

Have the truck's entire brake system checked out by someone who knows what the heck they're doing. Doing so may help you avoid being a sitting duck in an intersection again.

SL

 

Actually, from your description of the events, I'd say you DID still have your rear brakes.

The rear brakes operated when you mashed the pedal. Trying to stop a 5,000 lb. truck with just the rear brakes is an exercise in futility - try it with the parking brake sometime.

I've never seen a brake line failure. Not saying it can't happen, but every one I have ever seen had been mechanically damaged. Maybe whomever owned the truck previously used the 4x4 functionality off road and damaged the line ?

Glad to know you are OK. The truck is repairable - have it checked out thoroughly by a competent mechanic.

Good luck !

 

That's why they have dual bowl master cylinders, to isolate the problem to either the front or back, but not both. Too bad about what happened though, glad to see nothing worse happened.

 

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't the Emergency Brake operated by a cable?

 

lol yes it is a cable im very glad are trucks have dual clyinders have the same happen to me expect in a tarus they dont have dual clyinders just gotta crawl under every once and a while and check them for leaks or dry rot rust anything do it at least ever oil change

 

[QUOTE=snappylips]You drive a ten year old truck and don't know if the thing has ever had a brake job?? You can't be serious.
Did you bother to ask for service records when you bought it?
Did you have the sense to have the truck checked out before you bought it?
Did you check the oil before you drove it home?
If no to either of the former questions, chalk it up to "life's lessons"

Have the truck's entire brake system checked out by someone who knows what the heck they're doing. Doing so may help you avoid being a sitting duck in an intersection again

I bought the truck from the dealer the truck was orginally purchased from and had it checked out from a Ford mechanic before I bought it. On the service records for some reason only showed oil changes and liek new tires, but no other reported repairs, so if its any concern to you I had an appointment from a brake job this morning that I scheduled a week ago, so sorry I dont preform a 100 point check everytime I go out to drive my truck, so well have to see what happens this morning, the tow truck is on the way

 

Pretty much all vehicles since the mid sixties have dual master cylinders for safety. I can't even imagine an exception to that statement. Living in the midwest or anywhere that you have a real winter, I'd replace flexible brake lines when the truck is 10 yo. Thankfully nothing bad happened so you should go buy a lottery ticket! I just sold a '97 and if you can't get a good history, it's time to rebuild the backs and replace the calipers as well. Not that expensive, definitely not difficult, and you'll be good to go for quite some time.

 

I jsut talked to the mechainc and he said that a flex line broke and he was going to replace that and do a brake job, but i still cant get over the fact that a line like that will fail, I know things just conk out but man that could of been a matter of life and death, and I think Im gonna go buy a lottery ticket or two lol

 

brake lines rust out just like everything else. you should flush and fill you r brakes every 2 years. old fluid will rust out your lines from the inside.i iad a rear line snap on me.scary as hell. have to make sure e-brake is working 100%.these people that say dont worry about emergency brake must be crazy. when i bought my 97.i relpaced all the lines. about 150$ and about 5 hours of my time

 

I also wonder about when work was done on them previously, how many times the calipers were just allowed to hang by the flex lines rather than hanging them properly.

 

Everytime you turn the key it is a matter of life or death.The one that you won't remember will be death!Everything made of rubber will dry out and rot.Everything has an expiration date.Did you know if you leave the oil in the brake system long enough it will thicken up like mud,seen it happen in a 25 year old car.It is a problem we take for granted,when we turn the car off and everything is ok,we figure that it will be that way all the time.We need to learn about preventive maintenance.Get to know everything about what you drive,what to look for when thing are wearing out.I know for a fact if you knew what to look for and crawled under and looked, you would have seen warning signs that that line was going bad.I would put money on that.Don't act like things shouldn't happen to you cause that is just plain stupid.It does not matter if you know the best mechanic in the world,unless you chain him to the truck 24/7.SH_T HAPPENS and most will be your own fault.Life 101
Get use to it!It don't get better.

 

Brake fluid can absorb water ( hydrophilic)causing problems if the fluid gets really hot. Rusting of the lines is another possibility ( but you said the flex line; I'm assuming the rubber line failed). That's why most of the containers and manuals say to use fluid from a closed container. Changing it out once in awhile definitely helps. My guess would be that Kingfish is on to something. It's likely that the calipers were wedged above the rotor while being serviced, instead of hanging on to the suspension with a coat hanger wire or something. I've seen people do this a lot. It's also a good bet they fell once or twice while being serviced. The rubber line is only there to facilitate movement of the suspension, not to support any weight at all. You should replace both sides and spend some time seriously inspecting all of the brake components. It's time and money well spent.

 

preventive maintanence is the key. when you have an extra 10 mins go underneath look at everthing. every oil change i inspect brake lines. ive caugt major problems that way, gas lines also. ford bodys hold up well. but underneath rust just like every other truck

 

I had a line go except I was putting my truck in drive to go out of the garage so I wasn't moving. I've got a few rusted lines that need to be replaced coming from the master cylinder. Looks like I found a little project this weekend, thanks Oh yea and your going to need a double flaring tool kit for you do-it-yourselfers out there