No. Copper tubing isn’t strong enough to hold brake line pressures. There’s two types of metal brake line tubing, steel (the most common & relatively inexpensive), and nickel/copper alloy. Combining nickel to copper makes it strong enough, and produces a metal that isn’t as corrosion-prone. As mentioned above, reinforced rubber brake hose is also used in short segments, where flexibility is required.
Re: Fuel pump leak: Shouldn’t be overly difficult to fix. Either the replacement pump is faulty (fairly easy replacement job) or the fuel line connection to the fuel pump is leaking, again a relatively easy repair. In the meantime, advice to move vehicle to outdoors is a good idea, especially if there is any ignition source (spark or flame) in the garage, like a natural-gas hot water heater, etc.
My humorous vintage fuel pump story: Ford’s fuel pump springs leak, so off to the parts store I go, thinking they’ll have to order for me, vehicle very old. I tell the fellow manning the parts counter I need a fuel pump for 73 Ford 302. He doesn’t even need to get out of his chair, just turns around and grabs it off the shelf … lol … $17 as I recall.
Fuel pump on my colt was attached to head and driven by cam. High tech design. I removed old pump and didn’t notice plastic spacer was still attached. Yep, I tossed it. Found out why new pump seemed thinner.
I expect those that use gasoline didn’t break out the welder at the same time … lol … Quite a few years ago I owned a vintage slot machine. The maintenance instructions printed on the back cover said to clean the entire mechanism with several gallons of gasoline after every 1000 hours of use. I never did that, that much gasoline for cleaning purposes seemed too dangerous, but common practice in those days apparently.
I’ll grant filing the star-wheel is maybe a little over the top … lol … but the orientation of the adjuster cable is important for proper adjuster operation. If the cable is oriented the other way, the mechanism may appear to work , but it won’t work consistently during road-use. Not something to lose sleep over, just may have to do a manual adjustment once in a while.
The main challenge I have with diy’er maintenance on Ford drum brakes, I tend to lose that little thin washer that goes between the stationary and rotating part of the adjuster. For some reason it’s very easy to lose.
I am not surprised to see how cheap the steel brake lines are. They are often sold in stock lengths with fittings. But on the other side of the invoice where the labor is, I’ll bet they made up difference in what some of you expected with bending the lines to fit.
To me it looks like the shop is not prepared for older cars and does not know what they are doing, as well as just general poor workmanship. I’d like to see how they justify some of the prices they are charging for the parts. Used to be about a 40% markup but these look a lot higher than that.
Cheap Synthetic Blend Oil @ $4.79 a quart on a Flat Tappet Camshaft… Hummm…
I guess the Fords didn’t have enough power to need a strong enough valve spring to put too much pressure on the lifters against the bumpstick to wear out the lobs prematurely from lack of Zink in todays oils… Or to sink an unhardened valve seat from lack of Lead in todays unleaded gas… Interesting…
Centric brakes shoes rock auto $35 your mechanic charged 159
Shoes and hardware were $200 for front axle
Shoes for rear were $80 Plus $35 hardware.
I don’t care for his pricing
I m sure he thinks you will drive 800 miles in next 5 years
And he will be long gone.
You would think with new master cylinder, brake shoes, hardware, brake lines, wheel cylinders it would stop nice and evenly with good firm pedal. I think mech is a uneducated bum.
IIRC for my vintage Ford, diy’er me paid about $45 per shoe set, $90 total front and rear shoes, chain auto parts store, in person. I needed to also replace some of the springs, kit around $20. I replaced the wheel cylinders on the front, but I had purchased those a couple years before, don’t recall what they cost. The shop has to make some money on the parts in order to stay in business. I wouldn’t say OP was overcharged on the parts myself. Shop has to somehow make up for the lost billable time if the drum rust-sticks to the hub. Ask me how I know about this problem ? … lol …
On a vintage car, a brake job is a good opportunity to replace the wheel cylinders and adjuster mechanisms, maybe they did that too.
I have never heard of a professional shop that uses Rock Auto as there 1st call… Plus Rock Auto charges shipping, yes you can get it next day but damn it is expensive… I have ordered tons from Rock Auto, have lots of car magnets to prove it lol, but when you add shipping to the cost of the parts then sometimes you will pay about the same thing or more, if you use next day or a few days it is crazy expensive compared to just going to Napa or Adv/CQ…
All Shops charge a mark up on parts, it is what pays part of the bills, if you have never OWNED a shop you may not understand this…
You can always do it cheaper at home if you have the skills and proper tools… So Rock Auto is useless in this case!!
When I ordered every brake part but the booster and proportioning valve, plus many many more parts, I priced Rock Auto, ADV and O’Reilly’s shipped to my door, Adv and O]Reilly both had free shipping over $35.00, but after figuring Rock Auto’s shipping I ended up getting about a 1/3 of the order from all 3, meaning Rock Auto is not always cheaper and the quicker you want it like a shop would want the higher the price…
I’ve never seen that console, but I’m guessing the “big dot” is actually an “O”, and means “overdrive”. You probably have a Ford 3 forward speed + overdrive automatic transmission. You can use the overdrive position all the time if you want, but I expect you’d find the transmission will behave a little better, more responsive, in the non-overdrive position (small dot) when driving on city streets.
oops!
According the post below, what I said above is incorrect. I have the Ford C4 automatic in my vintage Ford, and it is 3 forward speeds only, 1, 2, & 3. If you also have the Ford C4, there is no overdrive. Note that just b/c your car is a 1966, that doesn’t necessarily imply you have a C4 transmission. A different transmission could have been installed along the way…
Good question, mine had a manual, never saw this before. According to Motor Trend:
“Ford automatic transmissions prior to '67 didn’t have a conventional gear-selection pattern. For example, the C4 Dual-Range three-speed automatic transmission used in '65-'66 Mustangs has two basic driving positions: small dot and large dot. The small dot position is actually Second gear for winter road starts. The large dot gets us started in First gear, with a normal 1-2-3 upshift. Ford called them Drive 1 and Drive 2, respectively.”
+1
The transmission on my father’s '66 Ford Galaxie 500 had two positions for “Drive”. One position allowed it to start in 2nd gear for low traction situations. The other was to maximize (as much as was then possible… ) the fuel economy by starting in 1st gear and then shifting normally through 2nd, and into 3rd gear.
While the shift quadrant was different, I think that the OP should use the “large dot” for Drive–unless she is in low-traction situations.
My truck has a Ford C4 trans & offers up D, 2, or 1 forward selections. Selecting “2” doesn’t mean “2” only though. It still starts in “1”, then shifts to “2”. But never goes to 3. I guess “2” for a low traction selection wasn’t a concern for a 4WD truck, just put it in 4WD mode for low traction. “2” comes in handy on long down-hills, provides some engine braking.
I always wondered why they call it C4? Since it only has three forward gears. Or are they also counting R? Ford has a C6 transmission too. Does it have 5 forward gears and R?
OP, you might want to keep the link below, has some pertinent info for your Mustang probably. Especially if you find your C4 automatic transmission won’t shift out of first, look at the posts about the transmission vacuum modulator.
