Tim -
Oh, no apologies necessary. I just didn't want anybody thinking that they
could
pour a bottle of Silicon based brake fluid in an already Glycol based
system and think everything was a-OK. I tried pouring a little Girling DOT
4 in some used DOT 5 Silicon, and that's what I found - You can shake it up
all you want and you get a cloudy mixture that eventually settles out into
a blob of Glycol fluid in the bottom - In fact it's been my experience that
even changing from Glycol to Silicon one needs to completely flush the
system with some form of cleaner (I used brake cleaner) and also replace
ALL the rubber with new. I know that others have been successful without
doing this, and that's fine. If it works, all the better. In my case the
rubber was damaged by NOT replacing it and I ended up having to tear
everything apart and replace all the seals anyway. And I flushed the
system with brake cleaner before filling. I believe that the swelling
agents act differently with the various fluids, and that is what caused the
problem in my case. The fairly new system filled with DOT 4 had sufficient
time to stabilize and when I switched over to DOT5, different reactions on
the seals caused them to swell differently then they already had, and
caused them to fail - One of the seals in the master cylinder almost fell
apart in my hand it was so soft. At any rate, after I replaced all the
seals everything has been fine -
One thing that is notable, and quite a nice difference from the old Glycol
"fluif" is that the Silicon in the reservoir seems to remain clear. You
don't get that characteristic blackening of the fluid as you do with Glycol
based stuff -
Barry Schwartz (San Diego) bschwart@pacbell.net
72 PI, V6 Spitfire (daily driver)
70 GT6+ (when I don't drive the Spit)
70 Spitfire (long term project)
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