[DML] Re: red brake fluid

["Dave Swingle" <swingle@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is pretty amazing. I had never noted the shop manual mentioning 
the red fluid, I suppose I never expected to run across a 25-year-old 
car with original fluid still in it. Now the strange part. 

I'm in the process of restoring #2466, a car which, although it has 
25000 miles on it, has only had about 4000 of that since 1985. It's a 
very original car, including all the struts, fan fail etc. One of the 
major issues with the car is the brakes. At the time I got it home, 
only one of the four brakes was functional. The master cylinder had 
started to leak but did not show signs of big leaks. Further 
inspection showed that 2 of the 4 flexible lines are plugged with 
what appeared to be crystalized brake fluid. The fluid that came out 
was  - reddish. I had never seen this before, usually old fluid is 
closer to dark brown or black. I just chalked it up as rust at the 
time, but the color is not really right for that, and the calipers 
were not really rusty inside (just goopy). Now I'm guessing that this 
was evidence of original red fluid that had not been subjected to a 
lot of moisture over the years (car was stored indoors all that 
time). 

ATE does make brake fluids in different colors (blue and gold), aimed 
primarily at racers who alternate color at each flush so they can 
tell when it's through the system. 

Dave S


--- In dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "mopardmc12" <doug@xxxx> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> My first, tentative post to the list.  Owned my car for about 16
> months now, absolutely love it.
> 
> My question is about brake fluid.  Mine is reddish in color, which I
> noticed when bleeding it after installing new rotors and pads.  It's
> also somewhat "cloudy" looking in the reservior.
> 
> The shop manual says, if I remember right, that on initial bleeding
> the fluid may look red as this was done at the factory for test 
purposes.
> 
> Could this mean my brake fluid is 22 years old!? 








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