Do I have to follow any specific cleaning or flushing procedure or is it even recommended to NOT convert with an old dot3 system?
Nope! Too much work. I will do it if I swap the calipers or do an MII swap. But not for a master cylinder swap.
The Cliff's Note's version, if you don't want to click over to that link, is you need to suck all the dot3 out, run about half a gallon of rubbing alcohol through the system, then disassemble all the calipers, mastercylinder, and cylinders, then remove all traces of alcohol and dot 3, then reassemble and fill with dot5. If it was just the alcohol run-through, I would do it, but I am not in the mood to teardown and rebuild all the cylinders and calipers right now.
why do u want to convert to dot 5? isn't it just more tempature resistant...forgive my slight ignorance ...lol
Doesn't damage paint. That is the main reason for me. My car is currently "not painted" but there are several spots on the fenders and engine bay that show where drops have hit and eaten down to the primer or even the steel. When I get it painted, someday, I will be VERY scared to do any brake work on it if the dot3 is going to mess up the paint job. Dot5 will make it much less nerve-wracking. It is even worth the extra cost, which is about 4X more than dot3. AND, dot5 does not absorb water from the atmosphere, so it will make your calipers and master cylinder, and the fluid, keep cleaner longer, theoretically.
On the "down" side DOT 5 is more compressible (it might feel like it needs to be bled after all the air is out. DOT 5 won't absorb any moisture that gets into the system (with air through the master cylinder) so it can get "water bubbles" in the lines which can freeze and cause a "no braking" condition at one or more wheels.
A buddy of mine had a rust problem develop after he converted his system to silicone he had rust thru out his entire brake system...all new parts. Cleaned it all out and switched back to DOT 3 ,Problem solved.
Hmmm. I never thought about the moisture problem that way... Currently, I am thinking of sticking with the dot3 JUST because a master cylinder swap shouldn't take more than an hour or so. A dot3-to-dot 5 swap sounds like a weekend job. I cannot have my car in the middle of the garage taking up my wife's space for any length of time where she would need to park outside. The stray cats would be all over her car and scratch the crap out of her black paint.
Scott, get you a good fender cover http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Summ...ptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories
I have two, but that doesn't help where it drips at the inlets and from under the cover when it bubbles while being bled. It hits the engine bay and drips down onto the steering box. There isn't enough room in there to put a catch can, so best I can do is jam and rag in there. Hopefully, after I put in the new m/c, I wont have to mess with it again for a long time. I have had nothing but bad luck with the previous 3 rebuilt O'Reilly master cylinders. They either bled past the plunger immediately upon installation, or lasted less than 5000 miles. I am hoping that I am making a good investment with this Wilwood m/c and won't have to mess with it again until I replace the front calipers and/or front suspension.
I see. Well, here's another thought. How about keeping a pump sprayer filled with water close by. Then you can rinse it down so it can peel the undercoating lol. Bleeding brakes can be messy. I have seen some mechanics that don't give it any thought beyond the fender. One guy I worked with got fluid on a customers rim clear coating. It was like jelly lol. He denied it being the brake fluid causing it.
What IS that stuff anyway? It is so corrosive, you would think it was used for other purposes than just brake fluid. Now that I think about it, I should have tried it on the roof when I was trying to get the vinyl top adhesive off. It just might have done the trick, keeping me from having to sand it all off.
The problem with using it to remove paint and adhesive is that you then have to clean the brake fluid out of the metal yo get paint to stick.
