I replaced the brake fluid with DOT 5 in my Spitfire about three years ago.
I was at the TRF summer party while I was thinking about how to do it. I
spoke to several people there including a TRF employee. They all suggested
that I use denatured alcohol to flush out the system. I bought the
denatured alcohol at Home Depot. I then drained most of the fluid out of
the M/C and then added the denatured alcohol and flushed until I got clean
fluid coming out. I had planned on replacing the rear wheel cylinders,
replacing all the hoses, rebuilding the front calipers and rebuilding the
M/C after having it brass sleeved at Whitepost so all I was really doing
was cleaning out the metal lines. I used an air compressor to blow out any
remaining fluid out of the lines. I have never had a problem.
One of the people I talked to at the TRF party did not replace anything.
He just flushed the system with denatured alcohol then drained it and then
just poured in the DOT 5 fluid in. He told me that any remaining denatured
alcohol floats up to the top of the MC and he just scooped it up. He said
that he had no problems for several years (he had the car at the show). I
don't think you would want to follow this route.
Alex Akalovsky
74 Spitfire (daily driver)
74 Spitfire (occasional driver)
76 Spitfire (frame up restoration)
76 Spitfire (maybe will restore)
At 01:52 PM 9/12/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Jim Bauder said:
>"I plan on flushing the lines and front calipers with as much "BrakeKleen"
>spray cleaner as I can afford
>to buy..."
>
>I'm not a chemist (even though I play one on TV), but isn't brake cleaner
>some sort of trichlor-type solvent? I'd be afraid that it would attack the
>elastomers in the system. I think that a better flushing solvent would be
>something like laboratory-grade isopropyl alcohol. Never having done this
>sort of thing, I'm arguing in a vacuum.
>
>Phil Barnes
>Cortland, NY (nowhere near New York City)
>peb3@cornell.edu
>'71 TR6 CC61193L (20 year owner)
>
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