Barney,
I was in the parts business when silicone fluid first came out (early 80's)
One of the concerns then was that air bubbles took longer to rise to the
surface and "pop" leading to a possibility of difficulty in bleeding. I have
no first hand knowledge of this one way or another, just something I read,
back then. As I recall there was some heated discussion between techs as to
whether this presented a problem and just how large a problem. My question
is Did you take any special precautions in the adding or bleeding of the DOT
5 fluid?
On a similar topic, DOT 3 and 4 fluid are prone to having a "deposit" or
sludge if you prefer accumulate in various points in the system. Over the
years I have flushed hundreds if not thousands of hydraulic brakes and
clutches and seen crap (for lack of a better word) in the bottom of masters,
cylinders and calipers. It seems that this stuff does not affect performance
If and this is a big if fluid is flushed to prevent water build up. I have
no evidence to back this up other than the observation of systems that have
gone extended time with no rebuild (up to 500,000 miles in one case).
Looking at what has come out of the bottom of many master cylinders, I had
always thought that what I was seeing was dust that had mixed with the fluid,
but Quien Sabe?
$. 02
Rick Ewald
In a message dated 02/23/2000 9:37:53 PM Pacific Standard Time,
barneymg@ntsource.com writes:
> The three problems with silicone are that,
> >1. it does not absorb water. This allows water to pool in the lines
> unless you bleed it out every year. This is probably a smaller problem in
> the desert where hunidity is non-existent.
>
> I live in a fairly humid are near Chicago, Illinois, and I drive my MGA in
> all kinds of weather, and it gets soaking wet pretty often. Check this for
> example:
|