My 06 ram 2500 4x4 needs front brakes. I have been avoiding doing it because of the amount of rust on everything. Well I started to work on them today. They are kicking my [censored]. After a can of PB rust blaster, heat and hammering on the left rotor it finally came off. Next I was going to retract the pistons on the caliper and noticed the pistons are covered with rust on the exposed edge. I tried to remove it the best I could but the piston won`t go back in far enough to get the caliper back on. So I bought new/rebuilt calipers and hoses from NAPA. (that`s a whole other story)

Well I went to replace the front rubber brake hose and the fitting on the metal brake line from the HCU won`t break loose. I got the hose off by removing the metal clip and spinning the hose off but the fitting won`t spin for me to be able to tighten. I don`t want to heat the fitting because the metal line has a plastic? coating. I ordered a new line from the dodge dealer but it will be 3-5 days to get.
Man this sucks.

No offense but I can't believe the number of rust belt posters here who don't know how to make a brake lines be and get new ones from the dealer.

It's really not the hard to bgend and flare new lines yourself.

If the hard lines are seized up and won't spin, I have learned (the hard way) best to just nip them off with a bolt cutter and make new. I got a 20' coil of brakeline from AZ and bend and flare them up. My hand bent replacements do not win beauty contests but have been trouble free.

I have cut and flared lines before on my old stuff without issues and I was going to do that but the flare end of the line looked different from the normal flare. Just wanted to be safe. Plus my eye sight sucks anymore.

Brake lines are typically a double flare. Requires a special tool to remake them vs the standard single flare.

it wasn`t a double flare. it was more like a bubble flare.

The bubble flare is a metric flare, you can buy the tool to make them as well.

Yep, missed the fact it was an 06, the newer ones often have the bubble or metric flares, they're a bit more difficult without a real good tool, (at least for me). The one Mastercool makes is real nice, if a bit spendy.

Well the new line will arrive on Friday. It was only $16 or so. So at least I know what type of flare to use for the next time. BTW, I was using PB blaster on the rusted rotors to get them off. The can ran empty and I went to Tractor Supply and they had some WD40 rust penetrate spray. Man , that stuff worked much better. It dissolved the rust much better.

Got the new line on. Now my brake pedal isn`t like it really should be. It seems to be a little spongy. I bled all four calipers to where no air was coming out. I was reading online that air can get trapped in ABS unit and a scan tool is needed to release it. Is there any way to doing it without gong to the dealer? BTW, I did double check for leaks and I had good flow to all the calipers.

I would drive it for a few days, then bleed them again. Any air in the system will work it's way to the bleeder.

I would drive it for a few days, then bleed them again. Any air in the system will work it's way to the bleeder.

Yea, I will give that a try and bleed them again next week.

I had a similar spongy pedal problem after service on an ABS equipped Jeep. With one day before it needed to start a 2,000 mile trip loaded to the roof + trailer, I took it a shop for pressure bleed. That fixed it.