Brake Fluid Pioneer?

[John Dickens]

Anybody out there been brave enough to try the mineral oil based brake fluid in their R bikes?

[Softtail]

Why would you want to? Is this like something new, a back to nature, high performance brake fluid or something? Why don't you try it first and let us know how it works!!

<<<<Softtail>>>>>

[John Dickens]

I'm a scaredy cat.

 

It's not a 'wonder' product. Car manufacturers are using it more commonly now. It doesn't absorb moisture so it's not supposed to need changing.

[cjmkerns]

My question would be, which car manufacturers and in cars with what level of brake performance?

 

Would sure be nice to have something that isn't Hygroscopic (sp?) and would still provide the needed level of performance.

 

Regards,

 

Carl

[Ron Jarvis]

If it doesn't absorb water and doesn't eat bikes, I would be very interested. But, no, haven't tried anything other than DOT4. Do you have more information? Ron

[SC_Jack]

I bought a Jaguar in 1990 that used mineral oil in the brake system. The brakes worked well. I've never had another car that used it.

[Matts_12GS]

No, but I wouldn't mine doing a tech day at my house to learn how to bleed my ABS. Anyone in FL know anything about doing that? If so, PM me I'll set up a date and we can do it here.

[No_Twilight]

Everything I've read about it is good. New systems seem to be using it. It seems to be very similar to Dot 5 (actually slightly superior)in performance and water affinity. It doesn't seem any less expensive either. It isn't compatible with dot 3/4 so you'll have to do an extensive flush to change to it. As with dot 5 fluid, since water doesn't dissolve it it, the boiling point doesn't change with time and, I assume, it doesn't become acidic and attack your brake cylinder parts like old dot 3/4 fluids do. If you do it a drop of water in a slave cylinder it will actually be much WORSE than dot 3 and 4 fluid but since it doesn't have water affinity, I don't see how this is likely to happen unless you're adding fluid outside in the rain. Perhaps a GSA that routinely fords rivers should avoid it.

 

So my question is this: if you didn't upgrade to dot 5, why do you want to consider upgrading to mineral oil based brake fluid? I've heard that Dot 5 isn't easy to bleed with ABS so maybe that's what is holding you back.

 

For my bike with old ABS II which is very easy to bleed and flush through, it's easier for me to stick with Dot 4 and change it about 2x/year. It seems the rest of the world is catching up with me when it comes to brake maintenance. I've been changing my brake fluid frequently for years. It's easy and virtually guarantees you'll never need any expensive maintenance on cylinders. I got in the habit when I would change the fluid in my car brakes before taking it to a track day. I assume bike owners do the same thing. However, bike brakes are much better matched to bike weight than car brakes so overheating and boiling of the brake fluid is less of a concern.

 

So if you've got a new ABS system that is hard to bleed/change the fluid, you might want to try it. But I'm not saying that I know it is a good thing. I don't know if you'll be able to extend your change intervals although it sounds likely to me that you will. I think BMW calls this fluid "lifetime" in the new hydraulic clutches on the K1200's. I really doubt there would be any incompatibility but again, I don't really know.

 

So maybe you knew all of this and that is why you're looking for someone who has tried it. If so, forgive me for boring you with my verbosity.

 

Cheers,

Jerry

[redryder]

I'm not a brake afficianado, but one concern I would have is that the seal and O rings in the system might not be compatable. I don't know that they are/aren't, but that would be a concern. I remember many years ago tinkering with seals/O rings on the farm, some would react quite badly to different types of fluid (hydraulic/motor oil/mineral oil/ brake fluid, etc.). That would be my main concern.

[RFW]

My question would be, which car manufacturers and in cars with what level of brake performance?

 

Would sure be nice to have something that isn't Hygroscopic (sp?) and would still provide the needed level of performance.

 

So buy DOT5 Silicone fluid. Only problem is that you will have to completely clean out the Dot4 from your system first. I did this on one car I had because I was tired of the corrosion in the aluminum brake cylinders. It worked great. You just need to be careful with bleeding the brakes to prevent entrapped air, due to the slightly higher viscosity of silicone fluid. Much higher temperature rating too.

 

Bob.

[DavidEBSmith]

If you switch to DOT5, not only will you get goop in your brake system if you fail to clean out every speck of DOT 3/4 fluid, the water that is not absorbed in the brake fluid will collect in the lowest part of the brake system, your calipers, and cause corrosion there. Until you brake hard and the bubble of water boils into a bubble of steam in your brake line. But that's OK, because you'll also find out this :

 

[DOT 5] is pretty much incompatible with anti-lock brakes because the silicone fluids tend to be more viscous, which can cause problems with the timing of the pulses that are intended to work with the thinner glycol-base fluid. This sometimes leads to damage of the ABS valving. The rapid pulsing necessary to anti-lock functions tend to cavitate the fluid, as the tiny bubbles collapse and coalesce into larger ones, and then collapse and reform into smaller ones. This tends to counteract the ABS effect and can diminish the actual effective braking. This condition also heats the fluid and can lead to even more sponginess and possible damage to the ABS controller. Thirdly, silicone brake fluid tends to foam when expressed from a small orifice under pressure, reducing its hydraulic effectiveness greatly.

 

As for the mineral oil based brake fluid, I can find about 100 references that say it will destroy the seals on brake systems designed for conventional brake fluid, and about 0 that say it's OK. So go ahead and be a pioneer, but please ride ahead of me, not behind me.