I was going to meet up with some people last night at this spot in town. You have to go up a huge steep hill, then it flattens out at the top and you can park cars there. Im driving up this steep hill, in front of me is one of my buddys in his ranger, and another is behind me in his '90 f150. The ranger stops at the top, so i hit my brakes to stop. A little bit of pressure, then nothing, the pedal hit the floor and i start rolling backwards toward the f150. I got that really crappy feeling you get in your stomach right before something really bad happends then i realized the e brake is there for a reason, so i stuck it to the floor and got it stopped. I get out to go tell people to get out of the way that i have no brakes. I then put it in 4x4 because it was slick from raining and i didnt want to spin. I got to the top, turned around and put it in first and crawled off the hill. I eventually got it stopped in a church parking lot.
We got under it and saw that i had a brake line that was rotten and decided to give way. It was the back section from the back of the gas tank to the rubber section.
My dad and i went and got some brake line and fluid and worked on it in the rain and froze out butts off this morning. It works fine now and got me home . I was stupid for not checking my brake lines before and i could have gotten myself hurt or someone else.

Just thought i would share that with you. Scared the crap out of me..

 

You lost both front and rear brakes? It should be a split master cylinder so if you loose either the front brakes, you still have the rears, and if you loose the rears you still have the fronts.

 

an excellent reason to make sure your EMERGENCY brake system is working properly.

 

Good job keeping your head straight in a panic situation. I wonder how many of us would have the presence of mind to hit the e-brake fast enough to prevent an accident.

 

Thats what i thought as i was pumping the stuff out of the pedal. But it was the line going down the frame so i guess it made the front and back lose pressure, i dunno. Maybe something more is wrong here?

 

Quick thinking with the e-brake! Mine were rotted in that section also, and the front sections didn't look that much better so I replaced all the steel lines, and the two front rubber hoses. This might be a good time to inspect/replace your other steel lines...