Brake Fluid

[David]

A total brake failure in Milton Keynes isn't just boiled fluid...there must be a contributing factor, such as a sticking rear caliper......

[KungFooBob]

Driving like a twat?

I could kill the brakes on my ZS TD101 on my 7 mile commute.... until I upgraded to vented discs and callipers off a 180.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Driving like a twat?

That's the one!

Lack of scheduled maintenance probably didn't help. Who bothers changing the brake fluid in the work's van, that's somoene elses job. Lucky if it had fuel in it.

[Hairybiker84]

Brake fluid change by vacuum is probably the easiest and cheapest kit but you often need to remove the bleed nipple and put a few turns of PTFE tape round the threads to stop it pulling air through there.
I bought a Draper pressure jobbie that is superb as it holds a fair quantity of fluid but you obviously need the cap to fit properly, fine on any car I've done, don't hold out much hope for most motorcycles.

[dern]

I used to put ptfe tape on the threads and while it make it slightly more efficient you don’t need to do it as even though it’s pulling air past the threads none of that gets in the system. The only time that might be useful is if you’re refilling from empty when you might have air in the system. If you have air in the system under any other circumstances you’ve got problems that bleeding the system isn’t going to fix.

I used to use a pressure system on cars but stopped as the vacuum system is just as good and less prone to making a massive mess.

[Hairybiker84]

I used to put ptfe tape on the threads and while it make it slightly more efficient you don’t need to do it as even though it’s pulling air past the threads none of that gets in the system. The only time that might be useful is if you’re refilling from empty when you might have air in the system. If you have air in the system under any other circumstances you’ve got problems that bleeding the system isn’t going to fix.

I used to use a pressure system on cars but stopped as the vacuum system is just as good and less prone to making a massive mess.

It's not the fact of air getting in the system, the ones I've done with ABS pumps would rather draw the air past the threads than through the pump. My forearm would cramp up before even getting the vac container half full . Similarly, try bleeding a Sprinter system with a vacuum pump, even though I've got a pretty good code reader, the ABS bleeding function wasn't available for the Sprinter - I gave up with the vacuum pump and bought a pressure jobbie, sorted