Re: IML: Regret Bad Brakes not DOT 5/ Staying Interested in the Old Car Hobby

[PAUL WENTINK <randalpark@xxxxxxx>]

If all there are no fluid leaks, all the parts are new, and none of 
them are defective, then it must be a problem with air in the lines or 
an incorrect brake adjustment. While it may be okay since this 
particular car is not on the road, it still should be explained that 
DOT 5 does not cause the kind of a problem described here.

Some say the pedal becomes slightly less responsive with DOT 5. I have 
not found this to be true, but I don't hot rod my cars either. I drive 
my daily driver's at freeway speeds, and in normal to heavy "stop and 
go" traffic with no ill effects. My comments on panic stops are known 
well enough to the IML that I won't mention that again here. I have 15 
cars with DOT 5 fluid in them. One of my '60 Imperials sat for 5 years 
without being moved at all after the brake job. That's five years, and 
there was absolutely no change in the pedal, once I got around to 
dealing with that particular car again. If that car had sat with 
hydrophilic fluid that long in this area (Seattle), the brakes would 
have become stuck. That is why I chose to use DOT 5 in the first place.

The recent string about losing interest in the cars reminds me of how I 
felt when my cars would sit too long and the brakes would simply rot 
from moisture in the lines. At one point I had 11 cars that couldn't 
move because the brakes were stuck. In 2003, I decided that I had to 
either get rid of them or make them work, and find out if I still 
wanted them. I chose the later, and discovered that I still wanted to 
keep them. Being able to drive the cars made all the difference in 
maintaining my level of interest in this hobby. The fact that regular 
brake bleeding would have prevented/solved the problem just doesn't 
work for me. It probably doesn't work for over half the folks on the 
IML. As Americans, we just don't habitually maintain cars that way. 
When it comes to bleeding brakes, there is only one correct way to do 
it on our cars, and that takes two people. Bleeding brakes on cars I 
drive frequently is a burden, much less on the cars that I don't. If 
they need brake work, they get it, but the requirement to do it 
constantly has been lifted from my shoulders. That, my friends is due 
to silicone brake fluid.

After spending the small amount of free time I had this summer getting 
three more Imperials back on the road (mostly old/rotten fuel in the 
tank related issues, another bugaboo for all of us) I have relegated 
this weekend to finishing the windshield replacement project on my 1948 
FOMOCO L.C. This has been nutty since two of the windshields have 
arrived broken, and it takes over six months for the guy to make me 
one. If you do the math you'll see that I have been stuck in this for 
some time. If I break this new windshield myself, I will be stuck for a 
while longer. That is just the way it is with old cars.

I have learned that the key to keeping it hot is to be persistent, 
patient, take my time on projects, accept failure and learn from it, 
and read the FSM as often as possible. Oh yes, another thing has been 
to join the IML, which I also did in 2003 once I decided to keep my 
Imperials and get them all back on the road. It was highly recommended 
at the time by Eric R, a past Web Monster.

Paul W.


-----Original Message-----
From: Kenyon Wills <imperialist1960@xxxxxxxxx>
To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 8:27 am
Subject: Re: IML: No Regret on Bad Brakes, DOT 5 has bad juju, I think




> On 10/11/07, PAUL WENTINK <randalpark@xxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > If the pedal goes away when the car sits it has
> absolutely NOTHING to
> > do with changing to DOT 5.

Maybe.

Considering that absolutely every piece besides the
drum backing plates is new (see my Epic on 1960 page
for photos) , including all metal lines on the frame,
I'm not inclined to suspect that this is a
component-related problem. Maybe a bad part, and I do
intend to address it when I get back on that horse,
but it loses pressure over 6-12 months, not overnight.

I'm too lazy to do the research for this message to
butress my argument, but I've seen things about DOT5
doing funny things to rubber like weeping over time
that support my suspicion.

Pedal works fine if I pressurize it, holds for days or
weeks even. It's just after months and months that I
got and continue to get surprises, the first one
landing me across the street in Myrtle's lawn when I
tried to use my rebuilt brake system and it declined
to operate.

No need to diagnose further here - car is in cold
storage and terribly incomplete, but I remain
convinced that I'd go with 3 if I did it again, so
that's what I was getting at.



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