Rear Brake Line Keepers....
 

Crawling around under the truck today chasing a rear end squeak. Located the culprit and it was the rear brake line rubbing on the top of the keeper loop. To my dismay the brake line hose now has notch in it (both driver and passenger) from where it has been rubbing on the keeper. I tried bending it so that the hose would sit in the middle of the loop, but still rubbed. How bad of an idea is it to just remove the keeper loops?

There was another thread about this squeak problem a few weeks ago. One solution is to bend the loops and/or position them via the bolts to make the cable tube centered and parallel in the loop. I did that then lubed the tube with white lithium grease. No squeaks after I did that.

I would think that the tubes are really needed to keep the cables in the correct routed bent position for the brakes. If they weren’t there the cables would flop around, drop down, and possibly catch on something while off-roading. If I recall, there is an additional rubber sheath-like tube over the actual brake line where it goes through the tube. Is that what got worn through? Maybe you can rotate that a little bit to get the worn area away from the metal edge of the keeper. Then try a silicone lube or grease wherever contact is made.

I think I am going to remove the keepers and use heavy duty zip tips to keep the lines up. My bigger concern that just the squeak is the rubbing and notching into the brake lines the rubbing on the metal loop has created. I've bend the loop into various positions, but there is still contact with the brake line.