HoosierDaddy

The mother in law just gave us her car as we need a 2nd one - been doing only 1 vehicle for the past 10 years, so it was is time.
It is a '92 Mercury Cougar in pretty nice nick apart from the brakes. I need to replace the brake line(s). Any idea how much that would cost at a garage to get fixed? If it is too much, the FIL says he could take a look....

Anyway, cheers for reading.

CelticRover

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/brake-line-repair.html

Mummy in the foothills

Dh is a mechanic, he's in work this weekend. But I can ask him and tell you tomorrow. We are in Cali but it'll give you an idea.
Or you could call somewhere like Meineke and ask how much for new brake lines on a 92 cougar. They will usually tell.

Macca67

Not a mechanic but spent enough time in my uncle's garage to understand a bit about motors. It's a fairly straightforward job and shouldn't take more than 3 hours to replace the lines.

Michelmas

Then you obviously have never worked on brake lines. It's messy and time consuming. You have to disconnect from the prop valve, master cylinder and each wheel and route it around, behind and through all sorts of obstacles (assuming nothing is so rusty it seizes and breaks off). Fingers crossed you can get pre-bent and terminated lines for your car. If not you have to get the lines, form them, flare them and fit the correct fittings on them. and then at the end of it all, you have to bleed all the lines and each wheel.

Having said that though, it shouldn't be more than a couple hundred dollars, You may be lucky and only have to repair a section rather than replace them all.

bevinva

Bleeding brake lines, not fun, we had a male female disconnect when I tried to help hubby with that. Can't help on cost estimate, OH works on our cars..............eventually.

md95065

That's the worst case (and, absent physical damage to the vehicle or severe corrosion, probably quite unlikely) scenario where you have to replace everything.

Much more likely that all that needs to be replaced are the flexible hoses that connect the metal brake lines to the brake cylinders - that is easy and shouldn't take more than a couple of hours at most even for an amateur mechanic.

RoadWarriorFromLP

If you want to know, I'd just call a few repair shops in your area that work on Fords and ask.

It's not clear from this how you determined that the brake lines need replacing, so I'd confirm your assessment before assuming that it is accurate. However, most brake work tends to be reasonably affordable. The Cougar of that era was mechanically identically to the Ford Thunderbird, so parts should be readily available and fairly cheap. I would expect most of the costs to be comprised of labor.

fatbrit

Somebody got brake fluid on the paintwork!

ironporer

Brake work, especially in the north where roads are heavily salted and cars corrode more can be tricky. Kinda like when your porch has a rotten board, and when you try to replace it you find the supports rotten...and end up having to replace the entire porch.


If I were you I'd get some quotes from local garages- it will probably save you a lot of aggrivation and scuffed up knuckles

HoosierDaddy

Aye - I got underneath the car yesterday and saw exactly where the fluid leak is coming from. Brake line rusted just before it splits off to the rear brakes. I will call around tomorrow, just wanted to see what the BE community would say also (since no garages were open when I posted).

Thanks for the input folks!

Michelmas

Yep, definitely worse case, but I would say severe corrosion in Indiana is most likely. Having done a small repair on a friends car recently which did require flaring and bending lines etc, the corrosion in south Michigan made it 10 times worse.

RoadWarriorFromLP

Thanks, I hadn't realized that you had diagnosed it yourself, or that you knew what you were doing.

The parts for the brake lines shouldn't cost that much. But as noted by another poster, if this was caused by corrosion (salt), you may uncover more problems as you start poking around. Cross your fingers...

Macca67

Like I said, not a mechanic but have worked on a few and don't recall it taking more than 3 hours to change a line. Perhaps I just work faster while you stand around thinking about it with hands in pockets?

CelticRover

It is not too difficult but obviously must be done correctly.



http://www.ehow.co.uk/video_2328140_...rake-line.html