Brake fluid change
- Thread starter Paul G (BHT)
- Start date
Myke Rocks
Registered user
Bollocks
Categorically or maybe dogegorically, in my previous bike an 1100RT, & current bike a servo 1200RT,( Lots of miles), I have never changed or had the brake fluid changed, and will not do so unless the system is dismantled for some other purpose. No moisture can enter the system on a motorcycle (unlike a car) because the reservoirs have a diaphragm seal on the top of the fluid reservoir, to stop the fluid spilling in the event of dropping the bike, but it also serves to prevent moisture contiaminating the brake fluid.
Myke
So you get the dealer to do it?
I just don't fancy my ABS unit and calipers internally corroding due to the moisture absorbed by the fluid and it's so cheap and easy to do (on a non-servo bike anyway) that it's a no-brainer.
But each to their own
Categorically or maybe dogegorically, in my previous bike an 1100RT, & current bike a servo 1200RT,( Lots of miles), I have never changed or had the brake fluid changed, and will not do so unless the system is dismantled for some other purpose. No moisture can enter the system on a motorcycle (unlike a car) because the reservoirs have a diaphragm seal on the top of the fluid reservoir, to stop the fluid spilling in the event of dropping the bike, but it also serves to prevent moisture contiaminating the brake fluid.
Myke
Good for you.
I'm aware of diaphragm seals in m/c reservoirs. However brake fluid does break down for other reasons apart from moisture contamination (heat, pressure, age etc). It's so simple and cheap to do it's a bit of a no-brainer especially for something as safety critical as brakes.
But it is of course, your decision
sockpuppet
Registered user
For the 20 minutes it takes we've spent longer arguing about it than it would have taken to change it.
ducatiparts.110mb
Registered user
Err, No you haven't.
The Grey One
Registered user
Well not really
Well it would be if others did not have to share the roads with people who take such a cavalier attitude to safety.
John
Good for you.
I'm aware of diaphragm seals in m/c reservoirs. However brake fluid does break down for other reasons apart from moisture contamination (heat, pressure, age etc). It's so simple and cheap to do it's a bit of a no-brainer especially for something as safety critical as brakes.
But it is of course, your decision
Well it would be if others did not have to share the roads with people who take such a cavalier attitude to safety.
John
Myke Rocks
Registered user
I'm not arguing.
Sorry, but I'm not arguing. I just don't change brake fluid unless system is dismantled for something else. A waste of time, money & effort designed by brake fluid manufacturers to sell more brake fluid.
Next time I "boil" the brake fluid on a roadgoing motorcycle, I will change fluid. In 1/4 of a million miles on bikes I have never done so. Have boiled new Dot 4 in rally cars within 5 miles though.
In a roadgoing car I have only boiled the fluid once in my life, with 6 in a Volvo 360 coming into Bets-y-Cwoed when late for a car ferry. Slowed down a little & problem disappeared.
Myke
Sorry, but I'm not arguing. I just don't change brake fluid unless system is dismantled for something else. A waste of time, money & effort designed by brake fluid manufacturers to sell more brake fluid.
Next time I "boil" the brake fluid on a roadgoing motorcycle, I will change fluid. In 1/4 of a million miles on bikes I have never done so. Have boiled new Dot 4 in rally cars within 5 miles though.
In a roadgoing car I have only boiled the fluid once in my life, with 6 in a Volvo 360 coming into Bets-y-Cwoed when late for a car ferry. Slowed down a little & problem disappeared.
Myke
Chrizm
Registered user
AS you hardly use the back brake at all..I simply drain front and back in order to swop the brake fluids over...sortedLikewise my 20/50 from the 1100 is well thrashed so that then goes into my airhead and then a couple of years later into my Land Rover. Win Win Win
Come on then, tell us ur procedure in more detail please. Im about to do a 4000 odd mile european trip and have done everything except check valve clearances and swapped brake fluid. Is it really that easy???
Mines a 97 1100 with ABS, not sure if it has a servo or not to be honest but I suspect it does.
Chris.
Shouldn't have.
The Grey One
Registered user
A little knowledge....
If the fluid had been changed it would not have boiled at all. As I used to say to customers at my garage there are people who have played Russian roulette and survived-that does not mean it's a good idea! The boiled once incident could have been your last experience on this planet. Conventional brake fluid (as apposed to the mineral fluid used for years by Citroen) does deteriorate with age, we used a tester in my garage on all vehicles and advised brake fluid changes as required. Our tester was itself tested every six months as part of our ISO 9002 programme. My first experience of a failure was loosing the brake (only had one) on a racing kart in 1971. The experienced guys told me later they changed fluid after every meeting. As for bike systems being sealed-there is no such thing-the fuid will absorb water. This water will lower the boiling point as well as causing corrosion in master cylinder and calipers not to mention expensive ABS units.
I have recently change the fluid on my 1150-ABS and servos- fitting stainless pipes at the same time, the whole operation took two and a half hours!
John
If the fluid had been changed it would not have boiled at all. As I used to say to customers at my garage there are people who have played Russian roulette and survived-that does not mean it's a good idea! The boiled once incident could have been your last experience on this planet. Conventional brake fluid (as apposed to the mineral fluid used for years by Citroen) does deteriorate with age, we used a tester in my garage on all vehicles and advised brake fluid changes as required. Our tester was itself tested every six months as part of our ISO 9002 programme. My first experience of a failure was loosing the brake (only had one) on a racing kart in 1971. The experienced guys told me later they changed fluid after every meeting. As for bike systems being sealed-there is no such thing-the fuid will absorb water. This water will lower the boiling point as well as causing corrosion in master cylinder and calipers not to mention expensive ABS units.
I have recently change the fluid on my 1150-ABS and servos- fitting stainless pipes at the same time, the whole operation took two and a half hours!
John
Myke Rocks
Registered user
If the fluid had been changed it would not have boiled at all. As I used to say to customers at my garage there are people who have played Russian roulette and survived-that does not mean it's a good idea! The boiled once incident could have been your last experience on this planet. Conventional brake fluid (as apposed to the mineral fluid used for years by Citroen) does deteriorate with age, we used a tester in my garage on all vehicles and advised brake fluid changes as required. Our tester was itself tested every six months as part of our ISO 9002 programme. My first experience of a failure was loosing the brake (only had one) on a racing kart in 1971. The experienced guys told me later they changed fluid after every meeting. As for bike systems being sealed-there is no such thing-the fuid will absorb water. This water will lower the boiling point as well as causing corrosion in master cylinder and calipers not to mention expensive ABS units.
I have recently change the fluid on my 1150-ABS and servos- fitting stainless pipes at the same time, the whole operation took two and a half hours!
John
Note what I wrote:
Have boiled new Dot 4 in rally cars within 5 miles though.
In a roadgoing car I have only boiled the fluid once in my life, with 6 in a Volvo 360 coming into Bets-y-Cwoed when late for a car ferry. Slowed down a little & problem disappeared.
The road car was 6 months old, & you will see the rally car brake fluid was less than a week old.
Anyway, boilng fluid just leaves the brakes a little spongy any you maybe have to pump the pedal 3 or 4 times to get a brake. The fun thing is then that, if you left foot brake, as I alwasy did when rallying, you keep the brake pedal depressed slightly to stop the brakes disapearing in between corners. On the rally car, I have photos of all 4 disks glowing cherry red at a checkpoint. This may have had something to do with the boiling.
ISO 9000 implentation is a means of producing a proveable paper trail.
As someone involved in manufacturing, I, and most of my colleagues believe it is a means of producing a repeatable product. If the product is rubbish, it will be consistently rubbish. It does not actually improve the product. Only company ethos does that.
Myke
IMHO, the only point of contention with any of this is simply why does it need changing every 2 years.
We all ride GS`s with the opposed engine with loads of engine braking, I hardly ever need to use the brakes so i would not expect it to boil.
Also with modern fluids why is it changed so often ?. it should be able to do 3 or 4 years on the average bike which tends to do far fewr miles per year than the average car.
We all ride GS`s with the opposed engine with loads of engine braking, I hardly ever need to use the brakes so i would not expect it to boil.
Also with modern fluids why is it changed so often ?. it should be able to do 3 or 4 years on the average bike which tends to do far fewr miles per year than the average car.
hairyhippy
Registered user
My mechanic told me that brake fluid deteriorates with heat. It doesn't need to boil to go off.
The Grey One
Registered user
I did read what you wrote, no mention of the age of the car. In any case a car that is "six months old" may actually have been assembled some considerable time before that. Unless the fluid was tested there is no way of knowing it's condition.
Your driving skill level is obviously far above average, having to pump the pedal a few times causes you no problems. Sadly most of us would find it alarming and many would suffer an accident as a result. My point is a general one-brake fluid deteriorates and need changing for the safety of all road users.
I am well aware of the limitations of the ISO 9002 scheme and totally agree with your comments. Actually we only went that route when we were approached by the local trading standards people who were looking to find someone to pilot their ISO 9002 training scheme. They said they wanted to use my place because we already were an example of good practise! They produced the manual etc for free in return for my input.
What was useful for me was instituting a system of regular checks such as equipment calibration. Having these organised by an outside body removed just one job from my list of tasks. This left me with more time to talk to customers and thereby ensure that they were correctly informed about such issues as the hyroscopic nature of conventional brale fuid (not an issue with LHM fluid)
John
If the fluid had been changed it would not have boiled at all. As I used to say to customers at my garage there are people who have played Russian roulette and survived-that does not mean it's a good idea! The boiled once incident could have been your last experience on this planet. Conventional brake fluid (as apposed to the mineral fluid used for years by Citroen) does deteriorate with age, we used a tester in my garage on all vehicles and advised brake fluid changes as required. Our tester was itself tested every six months as part of our ISO 9002 programme. My first experience of a failure was loosing the brake (only had one) on a racing kart in 1971. The experienced guys told me later they changed fluid after every meeting. As for bike systems being sealed-there is no such thing-the fuid will absorb water. This water will lower the boiling point as well as causing corrosion in master cylinder and calipers not to mention expensive ABS units.
I have recently change the fluid on my 1150-ABS and servos- fitting stainless pipes at the same time, the whole operation took two and a half hours!
John
What a load of complete and utter BOLLOX
It's like the Wash rinse and repeat idea that shampoo companies use..
Revenue earner...
Apart from the green Citroen LHM fluid, which imho all companies should use
..[ off topic but only other Vehicle manufacturer allowed by license to use Citroen LHM fluid was Rolls Royce/ Bentley for their self leveling system..]
The Grey One
Registered user
Usually when you resort to swearing you have alrady lost the arguement!
Thank you for your considered opinen-it just happens to differ from that of most experts-just try Google and check it out.
I worked on Citroen cars for 35 years and totally agree that all cars should use LHM fluid. Too much money to be made replacing callipers,wheelcylinders etc that fail due to the use of conventional fluid (especially when the fluid is not replaced as required)
John
And there were also some Maserati models that used LHM fluid-Citroen owned Maserati for a time and a Maserati engine was used in the Citroen SM
What a load of complete and utter BOLLOX
It's like the Wash rinse and repeat idea that shampoo companies use..
Revenue earner...
Apart from the green Citroen LHM fluid, which imho all companies should use
[ off topic but only other Vehicle manufacturer allowed by license to use Citroen LHM fluid was Rolls Royce/ Bentley for their self leveling system..]
Thank you for your considered opinen-it just happens to differ from that of most experts-just try Google and check it out.
I worked on Citroen cars for 35 years and totally agree that all cars should use LHM fluid. Too much money to be made replacing callipers,wheelcylinders etc that fail due to the use of conventional fluid (especially when the fluid is not replaced as required)
John
And there were also some Maserati models that used LHM fluid-Citroen owned Maserati for a time and a Maserati engine was used in the Citroen SM
I take it sir is referring to the most Beautiful car in the world, the SM
The one main fault with those was the untensioned main crank to jackshaft chain
driving the OHC's via the jackshaft..... which drove all the other auxilaries aircon and hydraulics ectThe cam chains were tensioned off the jack shaft,
The other auxilaries which by there nature cut in with a bang [ hydraulics /aircon] caused extreme shock on the main chain causing many failures.... 64 hour labour charge to fix
+ mega parts bill 
Unless you were crafty and cut a panel out of firewall and did them from the passenger cabin
with engine in situ.. also remember a cam chain tensioner mod that helped thats when I realised just how useful MIG welders were when replacing cut out panel...I take it sir is referring to the most Beautiful car in the world, the SM
.
You're not wrong
i always had / have a soft spot for the DS too.
You're not wrong
i always had / have a soft spot for the DS too.
I still cry and want to kill Burt Reynolds
when I see this opening scene
<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VK7cdDT5x-0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
and yes the horns did sound like that
I know it's off the original topic
but up yours The Grey One
Registered user
Spot on
Same applied to the DS timing chain, you could replace it in situ by the same method. Also CX heater matrix, remove centre consul trim, cut panel, extract matrix, refit panels etc two to three hours max instead of nearly two days! by the official method. Only ever had one customer who objected to this short cut ( we were always upfront and told customers about this option)
Could swap stories for hours about working on "proper cars" but I guess we ought to stick to bike related stuff.
If you ever get to our part of the world pop in for a beer and a chat.
John
I take it sir is referring to the most Beautiful car in the world, the SM
The one main fault with those was the untensioned main crank to jackshaft chain
The cam chains were tensioned off the jack shaft,
The other auxilaries which by there nature cut in with a bang [ hydraulics /aircon] caused extreme shock on the main chain causing many failures.... 64 hour labour charge to fix
Unless you were crafty and cut a panel out of firewall and did them from the passenger cabin
Same applied to the DS timing chain, you could replace it in situ by the same method. Also CX heater matrix, remove centre consul trim, cut panel, extract matrix, refit panels etc two to three hours max instead of nearly two days! by the official method. Only ever had one customer who objected to this short cut ( we were always upfront and told customers about this option)
Could swap stories for hours about working on "proper cars" but I guess we ought to stick to bike related stuff.
If you ever get to our part of the world pop in for a beer and a chat.
John
Similar threads
