RelicAte

Any recommendations on where/who sells/makes prefabbed OEM brake lines? I'd like to invest a little money into my poor old Cavy, which is suffering from a case of the Rust blues. I just had to fix a section of brake line at the rear driver wheel, but the rest of my lines are starting to look pretty sketchy too. I know that I could just by the tools required, and a bulk roll of steel line, but seems like an awful lot of work to bend/flare, install. I've heard there are places/shops out there that will do this type of work, using blueprints from the OEM parts. Would a dealer service department have this kind of info? Any insight would be greatly appreciated...

sledge.impy

I had the power steering cooler lines were leaking replaced at gm dealership. This was simple replace a part.

Years later, I replaced both brake and fuel lines on my 1987 Cavalier z24.
The brake and fuel lines probably had some more to go. I bent/flared to fit what I needed. Flaring them wasn't exactly easy. Had to use some oil to get them to go the way I wanted. I had the engine out which made it a lot easier to get all the brake lines up front and fuel lines.

My work appeared to be good until I primed the fuel lines. OOPS. I had several leaks from bad connections.. I did read something about not having connectors on brake lines or something. Not sure if that was state law or what. Well the brakes did appear to work after I did all that work and nothing caught fire. But you are right, it is a total PITA.

It was almost impossible to get the exact bends. so a lot of it was estimated and had issues with re-bolting brackets back up to rusted body.

I can say I hope to never do this again.

JohnnyHydro

I bought a 99 z24 new. The engine threw 2 rods right through the oil pan at 36,300 miles. Thank god I had bought the extended warranty. That would have sucked being 300 miles out of warranty lol. Anyways I build high pressure testing equipment so I bend tubing all the time. Most of them are 10k psi so they are really thick stainless. My point is it's really easy to do brake lines if you get a decent bender and flare tool. Especially since you already have an existing line. Just pull it out and measure to the bends and copy. Just make some practice bends to get an idea of where to line up your marks on your bender so that they bend exactly where you want. You can even get a few unions incase you have a wrong bend in a long run. I believe you have to have some unions anyways because you can't get full lengths in place. Just weigh the cost to time since removing and installing is the worst part anyways. Good luck.

tech2

dealer sells an almost complete fuel and brake line kit (you will have to fab the one small section of brake line that crosses from the left rear wheel to the right rear wheel). It is available for certain models and costs around $250. You will need to get the car up fairly high (hoist is preferable) to install them.

eggenet

Just trash the car and buy a 2003 for around $500 and get it oil sprayed every year and you are good to go. Oh and the bonus here is you can make around $300 to $400 on scraping the 97 and in the end you only pay around $100 for the 03 How can you lose.

tech2

in my experience any 10 year old car sold for any price is usually a bill for at least $1000 in repairs. Double that figure if you have to have the work done by a shop.

eggenet

If you live in a large cithy as I do "Toronto" there are hundres of Cavaliers for sale. I bought an 03 for $500 and it passed safety I replaced the tires with new because the tires did pass safety but they were 8 years old. If you shop around there are good deals. I find you can get great deals on 10 year old cars mostly because they have $0 value on trade-ins only value left is scrap value.

tech2

Hasn't been my experience.


the car in my avatar is an 2004 with 200 000km. It needed $1000 in repairs and I did all the work. prices were cheap due to my trade discount.


My 05 cav with 224 000km needed $1250 and cost $1200 to purchase. My 2005 dodge ram needed $650 in repairs and cost $7000 for the truck.


Point being...I've done this more than once.


every $500 car I've seen on kijiji were complete ****-boxes, most don't run. If your into a car for parts more than its book value...waste.