I quick story on DOT3 brake fluid:
Once upon a time, I was driving my MGB down to the local paint-em up
shop to put a nice new coat of paint on the beastie. This was good.
On the way to the paint shop the brakes failed. This was bad.
However, there was a brake shop next to the autobody shop. This was good.
I limped the car down and told the lads at the brake shop to replace the
master cylinder after the car was painted. "Oh goody", they said. I
went off to my vacation in Hawaii (1 day before hurricane Eva landed. . .
but that's another story).
Upon returning to the mainland, I recover my freshly painted car which now
has brakes. This, I thought, was good.
Fade to 1 year hence . . .
I am in my MGB at my fiance's house. In the mountains. I back out
of the drive and step on the brake and. . .
. . . the brake pedal goes all the way to the floor.
A postmortem yields the fact that:
1) All the rubber pieces in the rear wheel cylinders are reduced to
mush.
2) By brandy new master cylinder is none too well either.
3) The brake shop had used DOT3 brake fluid.
If the brakes had failed 5 minutes later, we would have been hurdling
down a mountain pass. As it turns out, due to my own stupidity, I
lost a wheel towing the car down this very pass. The subsequent damage
is still causing me problems.
The moral of the story:
I can't prove it was the DOT3. However, I now use silicone brake
fluid. The proof is left to the student.
Cheers,
Mark Rosneck
(503) 626-1340
Mentor Graphics Corp., 8500 SW Creekside Place, Beaverton OR 97005
...!{sequent,tessi,apollo}!mntgfx!mrosneck OR mrosneck.MENTOR.COM
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