My uncle's brake line advice from 1994 still holds up today

Back when I was 16 my uncle Mike told me to never trust a used brake line that looked too clean, and after 30 years of fixing rigs I finally saw why. Last spring I put a shiny replacement line on my '87 F150 and it blew out at a red light in Tulsa, three weeks later. He said the cheap coated lines hide rust under the paint, and he was right. Anyone else get handed a piece of wisdom that took decades to actually bite you?

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spencer6641mo ago

Damn, that hit home. I used to be the guy who'd grab the shiniest line off the shelf and think I was smarter than everyone else. Figured my uncle was just being paranoid about old junk, but nope. Bought one of those cheap coated lines for my '92 Chevy last year, looked perfect out of the box, and it started weeping fluid within two months. The rust was already working underneath the coating before I even installed it. Now I strip the paint off any new line and check with a magnet before I trust it. Your uncle knew what he was talking about, and I wish I'd listened the first ten times someone told me.

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