I have a simple ( I hope) question. I need to bleed my clutch fluid. The previous owner allowed water to contaminate it and left it that way. The fluid is a milky brown color and has sediment in the bottom of the resevoir. I was able to "spoon" most of the sediment out, but the system needs to be completely refilled with clean fluid. Now the question: a car guy advised me to drain it and follow with alcohol before I started to add new brake fluid. My plan was just to drain and replenish with dot4 as I went. Does anyone know if the alcohol advice "to clear it" is valid or should I go with the plan to add brake fluid until it bled clean? I have a 93 1000F..
Thanx !!

 

I have heard of doing that, but have never done it. I have bleed gallons of brake fluid during my riding and racing, motorcycles and cars. Problem is "what kind of alcohol would u use"?
If it is bad u may try to take the master and slave cyl. apart to verify if the metal has been damaged by the rust. If so it will wear very fast.
Just some thoughts

 

Thnx Tomit. Those are my concerns whther to use regular isopropyl(has additives) what strenght or one of the other "pure"forms. I rode the rest of the season ,about a month with no disernable problems,a few missed gears,but I think that was me getting used to the bike. Normally it shifts and holds with no problems.
I think I am going to just run brake fluid thru it until I get it all out.I'll overdo it to be sure. AFTER I'm sure the sediment is clear of the resovoiur. I did do that before I rode it last season.
Thanx for your thoughts on this.

 

From the information I gathered, it seems that it would be safe to use alcohol for flushing, since DOT3/4 fluids are Glycol based. However, I would not use this flushing method unless it was absolutely necessary. In my 10 years on working on bikes I have NEVER came across a hydraulic system in which i couldn't simply wipe off the reservoir and flush the rest. If you are serious about getting every spec of dirt out of your system, I recommend rebuilding you master cylinder and calipers. This is a time consuming project (I would give it a 4 on complexity out of 10) compared to simply flushing your fluids, but but if your system is that contaminated it might me worth doing. if you need more directions, let me know.

 

If U haven’t flushed with fluid yet, I would clean ALL the debris out of ur master cyl. If not then U just flush it to the slave and then U may create more problems down the road. I would never use isopropyl because it has a high h20 content, then U could cause other issues.
Back in Aug. I purchased a used 96 1KF and there was "brown" "stuff" for lack or a better word in the master. Clutch functioned fine, but I changed ALL fluids in the bike and have had no problems now after 600 miles.

Another issue is the fluid U use, They are NOT all the same. I was looking for Castrol LMA fluid for it properties related to moisture.
I found this very helpful info.: www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp_brakefluid_1a.shtml

I bought mine @ : OGracing for $10.95/ liter or qt.
Another nice thing about this fluid is that it comes in blue and gold so that when you change it out you know you have flushed out all the old when the color changes. A very good thing on these brakes with all the lines and ....... well you know if you have bleed/flushed them.
Hope this may help.

 

Thanx a million guys. All of this is good information and fits with my impression of remedying this> the brake fluid "looks" good and I will leave that alone. What I really would like is to replace all the lines with the steel wrap.(adds performance and looks) This bike has the combined braking system which I understand has it's own set of problems. Thats another thread though.
Like the idea of a different color,that gaurantees the all the old stuff is gone. and the url supplied some good info on whats going on.
Alpiniste, you have the best job n the world. You get to fix motorcycles and get paid ! Folks are going to love you around here. And thanx for the offer of future advice. I'll try not to bug you.....