My wife has our old '95 F-150 5.0L that we bought before I moved up and bought a low-mileage '95 Lightning. 2 years ago the LF brake line failed. It rusted through. Interestingly, the pedal went right to the floor. I would have expected that the independent rear system would have still provided some braking, but there was none. Thankfully neither of us was driving when it let loose. It was just in a parking lot. Yesterday she called and said that the same thing happend but she wasn't sure which line failed. I'll know in a day or so after it's fixed, but it was the same symptom. No pedal at all. Complete failure.

Has anyone else run into recurring brake line failures? Are they typically hard lines or hoses?

I love my Lightning but I'll think twice about keeping it if I have to worry that it won't stop some day.

 

I've had the hard lines fail, never had a hose fail though. One was on a 64 F100 the other was on a 63 FLH.

The one on the truck was constantly expose to the elements from the drivers side wheel well and rotted through.

The one on the bike had a rubber boot over the brake line where it passed behind the inner primary case. The rubber boot retained moisture and caused it to rot too.
Both times they rotted from the outside, both times I had little to no brakes as a result.


BTW, rear brakes alone are nearly useless on a heavy vehicle. The 64 F100 did'nt have a proportioning valve so both front & rear brakes shared the same resevoir and master cylinder.

At this point you should give all the hard lines a good looking over to see if they are rotten enough to warrant replacing before they leak.

Good luck.