Vacuum lines falling apart

[mfmagicmike]

Hi everyone!

The engine vacuum lines of my 89 LTD crown vic are starting to fall apart. I guess its due to chronic heat damage: I touch them - they break. Since they must be important for something, and since repairing them isn't very easy nor funny (and probably not effective at all), I started looking for replacement ones. To my great surprise, no one seems to sell any for this specific application (at least not on the internet).
Does anyone know where to get some? What are the required specs for these lines (in case I should have to custom fit them)?

Thanks for Your help!

[1987cp]

Almost certain you'll have to just make new ones. Plain rubber vacuum hose is cheap and reliable, and easy to work with - especially since a lot of places you can buy it in bulk so you don't have lots of small lengths left over. You can also buy coils of thin-wall plastic vacuum line similar to the original stuff and buy little rubber ends for it separately, but the results of my experiment with that approach seemed to indicate that the ends tend to be very short-lived.

You could always use something like colored electrical tape at each end of a given hose if you want to try to keep the factory color coding.

[gadget73]

Bulk vacuum line is your friend. There are no pre-made ones, you'll just have to wing it with rubber line.

[mfmagicmike]

Strange that there is no specific replacement, especially as Ford has these connectors at the end of each line...

[johnunit]

Is there a way to tape vacuum lines or something? I have one break (totally in half) of the line to my soup can, and electrical tape and the like won't stick, even after cleaning the hell out of the line. I'd rather not go through all the stuff of running a new line, since all my other facuum lines look good.

[mfmagicmike]

I repaired mine with a heat-retractable electrical connector (itīs like a small tube, you put a lighter underneath it and it neatly shrinks around the vacuum line). Works fine, but I donīt know if there still is some vacuum in the hose.

[gadget73]

Use a small piece of rubber vacuum hose as a connector. Need about 2". You can buy a roll of windshield washer tubing at the parts store and use it up. Think its 7/32 or something fairly small like that.