brake lines on 1989 lesabre limited

hello, recently a brake line in my grandmothers car has got a hole in it where it was rubbing on the frame, they were told by a local repair shop its not worth it to repair, i was given this car, as she recently purchased a new one, the one with the brake line issues has 25000 origional miles on it as she only drove it to local places like church. now the bottom of the car has medium rust as expected, but i have no idea how brake lines are replaced, but i am very good at mechanics and am interested in repairing this myself. im wondering, do you think this is worth it money wise?
how much it will cost me for parts?
how long this will typically take as i plan on replacing fuel and brake lines all together since they are kinda placed together. i need anyones opinion. please any suggestions

thankyou...

The fuel and brake lines are the achiles heel of this car. I think water collects on them promoting rust.

I had your exact problem in my 90 Lesaber. The fuel lines were rusting out and leaking in multiple spots and the brake lines were equally a joke. Usually, the fix would be to splice in new sections of line. My problem was that there were no good sections of line to splice into. I elected to totally replace every line to the rear of the car.

GM actually has available the fuel and brake lines as a single repair kit (you just bolt it up, all the f+b lines are clipped together). Alternatively, part stores sell the brake and fuel lines in various lenghts that you cut to the right size. These parts are relatively cheap. The labor in the replacement is the killer: (9-10 hrs - done by a mechanic who knew what he was doing with a Lift. Expect it to take longer working under a car on your back.) My total bill topped out at $1100.

do you mean it costs 1100 to do it yourself or 1100 to have it done by a mechanic, i stopped in a repair shop and he wanted 900 to do f+b lines, that included labor so i think i am going to take care of this problem over Spring Break Vaction time, i will take it peice by peice side by side, one at a time and relax for a while so i dont kill myself doing this big job. how much should it run me in parts for just repairing the brake lines myself?around 200 dollars is what a few buddys have told me, what does the flaring tool do, i have access to one, will i need to use it? also is this a fairly common sense type of thing you just bolt the brake lines on i am assuming, i have instructions on the bleeding procedure and how to reset the MC. if you have any places you reccomend getting lines from please let me know, also should i use steel or rubber?

if you want, email me at Gocart879@msn.com, it will probubly be easier for us tom communicate
thanks mike

I replaced the brake and fuel lines on my '90 LeSabre this past fall. One thing I can say is that it is time consuming and at times challenging. I tried all my local GM dealers looking for that repair kit that contains the lines that yogi mentions in their post. None of them knew what I was talking about, and the same went for the dealers who sell online that I am in contact with. I ended up buying the fuel lines at the dealer for just over $50( parts guy gave me discount because I used to work with him ,otherwise it would have cost close to $70.) That covered from the front of the vehicle to the fuel filter. I ended up replacing the tank, and sending unit, and the lines that went from the sending unit to the filter. All the brake line was purchased at Autozone along with a flare tool kit ($9) which we found out was a very important tool to have. This allowed us to custom make the lines that we would have had to locate through the dealer,(which most dealers no longer carry as the vehicle is too old.) Some of the OEM lines from the car had special fittings on the end. These generally are not available at the auto store. Cut the old line and save the fitting,then put that fitting on the new line then use the flare tool to duplicate the particular flare. Keep in mind that GM used different size flares on these lines, and do not discard the old lines until you have duplicated the same flare on the new line and installed it. Plus having the old lines around makes it much easier to duplicate the bends and turns in the new lines. I can't remember how much the brake lines cost me as I ended up going to multiple stores for all my lines that I needed, but I believe it was under $100. Cost wise, I would think the steel lines would be less expensive, besides I'm not sure if your state allows rubber to be used for brake lines if they have safety inspections. My state doesn't allow compression fittings to be used, rather they want the kind of fittings that are found on the steel lines. Make sure you carefully look at how the lines were routed and where each line goes to when you reinstall it. The LeSabre's brake system was quite different than some of the other brake systems I had worked on previously, but it is still fairly easy to understand and navigate.

Well I just bought a 1989 LeSabre and the fuel line leaks right where it connects to the fuel filter (I think that is what it is). Anyhow I tried putting and special gasoline resistant sealant on the joint I let it sit for about 3 hours and I turned on my car. It was dark out but I had another car's lights shining on mine and the Fuel was just gushing out lol (angry frustrated lol). What should I do, the 3 or 4 lines that are next to each other are extremely rusty. The mechanic said I can use brake line and clamps to fix it, but he said it would be illegal for him to do it. I figured from where it was leaking I would need a new Fuel Filter also, how much will this set me back?

in total, you will have 5 lines running together in a some what twisty turny channel. 3 of the lines are fuel related, and 2 of them are the brake lines. For the brake lines, you will see multiple unions under the vehicle, this is where you add and remove broken sections. But seeing as your problem results being fuel related, lets start with that first. Since your leak is comin into the filter, it most likely means that your sending unit is rotted out, but lets not find out if it is, so take the section where its leaking and cut it carefully with a small pipe cutter. after the broken leaky section is cut, take a file and carefully sand off the rust particles and make it easy to put some rubber hose on. buy some fuel injection hose at a parts store, and be careful on the length. i would not go over 3-4 inches at a time. clamp the part of the rubber hose onto the filed edge of the line, and buy some 3/8inch brake line at you parts store, i would replace it all. dont cut and patch. a 50inch section costs about 6 dollars, and the lengths less than that are like 4. do as best as you can, being careful with the brake lines, dont break them. chances are your fuel lines coming out of the engine and down the hood are in good shape, so where they take a bend to run under the car is where i would attach metal to metal with another (small) section of fuel injection hose. it can be challenging but if you are patient you will be ok. the lines come with flared edges and nuts, these are to attach metal line to metal line, or in your case to the fuel filter. use the nuts to attach to the filter and you will be much happier. if you need help on the brake lines, let me know, its a whole different process.

mike

Okay I drew a picture, should I cut the metal pipe right after the joint on the right side of the filter, and then cut it on the left side of the filter all the way down before it goes into my tank? Btw what connects into the filter? I bought a new filter and I don't know what type of pipe screws into it.
Image http://webpages.charter.net/chriskukowski/Gas_Leak.bmp

ok, im sorry, i thought your leak was on the other side of the filter, ok here it goes. carefully, remove the filter from the (good) unbroken side of the filter, you have a small nut which screws into the filter, loosen it, and just take the filter and broken section of line off. go to your parts store, taker thre filter with you and tell them you need 3/8 brake line to fit in your new filter, the new brake line will come with flared ends to prevent leaks and nuts to tighten into the filter. follow your broken section of line all the way to about your drivers side door where it makes its first bend <>------|_______ the dashed section is what should be replaced. take a pipe cutter and remove the broken section of line up until about 3 inches before the first bend. At the 3 inches before the bend, file it down and place small section of f-injection hose over it, cut the flared edge and nut off the good section of line to mate the old and new lines toghther b/c you wont get the fuel injection hose over the large nut, repeat the same procedure on the other lines. if you need to go further with the lines, go as far as you need to. just get a union to connect new lines with new line. im sorry if my instructions are hard to read. i apologize.

mike