Patient listers,
I believe my flawed statement about compressibility came from discussions I
read, some time back, in which the participants were speculating about what
happens when things heat up and there is ANY water present in the system --
with conventional fluids, perhaps this is a less significant problem, since
the water is dispersed throughout the fluid (although I recall that boiling
point of these fluids goes down over time, presumably due to the water
contamination), whereas a little water drop in silicone would be isolated --
if it got hot enough to boil, there would be an expanding steam pocket that
would make the pedal spongy. Presumably the boiling point of a droplet of
water is way below the boiling point of even contaminated conventional
fluid. I suppose the question would then be, how does the droplet of water
get there in a silicone fluid-filled system? Perhaps the debate grew out of
the usual two-sided motor head argument -- like Ford vs. Chevy. Whatever.
It's been an education to hear about technology changes. I should have
known that the makers of silicone fluid would have improved things since I
used it in 1979.
Duncan
ps: does anybody remember a discussion, here, I think, sometime back, about
the merits of Ford DOT 3 fluid? Supposedly it is very high quality and
racers were using it rather than DOT 4.
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