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On 2 Sep 98, at 11:42, Toby B wrote: > Just to throw a wet towel in the ring, > I used DOT 5 silicone (NAPA's, to name names) when I redid an older > Datsun Roadster 5 years ago, and I was never really happy with the pedal > feel. It's a hard car to bleed, so I'm sure I never got all the air > out, but even with S/S lines all around, the pedal had a really rubbery > feel. Not 'air bubble' rubbery, but 'dry rubber sliding on aluminum > bores' rubbery. I put DOT 4 in this spring, and have been much happier > since. Of course, this was a NON-TYPE-3 EXPERIENCE, but it really did > happen! When I was looking into this many years ago, there were only two actual manufacturers of DoT-5, Dow-Corning and General Electric. This may have changed by now, but there have always been many more brands than actual suppliers. I believe you. I don't know for sure what the cause of your observation was, but I believe that the compressibility of the silicone is not significantly different from std fluid. I say this even though I understand that there are a million people out there who have heard otherwise. I have also been through a car that I had a hard time bleeding properly, and I agree that it can certainly be a pain. My experience is that each of us gets used to the feel of our brakes in our cars as they age and start to have problems. One of the most common problems is frozen calipers, which means that the pistons don't retract as they are intended to. One of the unexpected side effects of this is that our brakes get a higher pedal since the calipers have to go through less motion now that the pistons are usually already mostly in place. So one of the first things people notice about their car after a brake rebuild is that there is "a lot" of pedal travel. While this is perceived as a problem, in reality the brakes have just been returned to their normal, and proper, state. I find that when I used the Girling LMA D0T-4 fluid, I could feel the MC rubber parts rubbing "squeaky clean" in the bore of the MC, and, sure enough, this rubbing caused the MC rubber parts to wear out in just a couple of years. OTOH, the silicone fluid is such a good rubber to metal lubricant that these parts never seem to wear out. Yes there is a tremendous difference in feel, and I think it is wonderful. Plus, the temp here gets down below -20F occasionally, and my brakes don't feel any different. With std fluid the pedal felt like I was pumping molassas at that temp. Jim - ******************************* Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, Wisconsin, USA ******************************* ------------------------------------------------------------------- Search old messages on the Web! Visit http://www.vwtype3.org/list/