Caliper Replacement Question
Tuned
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 436
Likes: 51
From: Southwest WA
Fleet Owner
Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 25,090
Likes: 1,111
From: Rio Rico, AZ.
I'll add to this discussion a very much overlooked fact. Brake fluid is hydroscopic, meaning it will absorb water right out of the H20 in the atmosphere. Nature abhors a vacuum and there's no water in brake fluid and it's water soluble. So because of that, just about every vehicle on the face of the earth needs to have it's brake fluid flushed out and replaced with new fluid every two years. Look it up in the service specs, it's there. I've seen some real damage to braking systems just due to enough time has gone by without any sort of service work done and now it needs every working component replaced.
Hotshot
Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 12,782
Likes: 2,142
From: N.GA Mountains
Another thing many people don’t realize is that you should NEVER add fluid to your brake reservoir. The fluid should be at MAX level with fresh brake pads all around and at MIN level with worn out pads. Filling in between will cause the reservoir to overflow while compressing calipers during brake job. NOT filling provides a visual reference to how much brake pad is left.
I’m sure folks have caused themselves more problems by regularly ‘topping off’ their brake fluid reservoir with contaminated fluid from a bottle grandpa left in the cabinet 20yrs ago.
There are no acceptable amounts of brake fluid ‘leaks’. If you HAVE to add fluid, ya oughta figure out WHY!!
Tuned
Joined: Oct 2020
Posts: 418
Likes: 178
From: Piedmont of N.C.
Once the seal on the bottle is broken, the contamination begins right then. A couple of years back, I finally broke down and bought a power bleeder. It makes replacing the brake fluid super easy and quick with no worries about the master cylinder getting low during the process. Gravity bleeding is fine, just keep an eye on the master cylinder fluid level or be prepared to start all over.
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