Where do I start? I know the old has to come out.

 

If you want to do it by yourself buy the speedbleeders. They make it a one man job.

Start at the furthest wheel away from the master cyclinder and work your way closer, one at a time.

There have been a number of detailed threads recently on flushing the brake system. A search should bring you to them or you could just go back a few pages and look around.

You will get a lot of opinions on here about the best brake fluid to replace it with. You have to think about the intended use. Is it a track car, auto-x, drag, or street? Or a combination.

Do a search on brake fluid for the threads regarding that too.

 

Are you asking:

"How do I flush my brake fluid?"

if so, jwt's post is a good start. (and he is quick on the response too!)

 

Thanks. Yes, I need to flush the fluid.

 

Flushed my fluid today and my brakes are terrible now. It's possible that I let one the reservoirs get too low. Do I just bleed them all over again?

 

If your brakes are worse, then there is a good chance you have air in the lines. You will need to rebleed to get the air out.

When I bled the brakes in my 86' last year, the old fluid looked like coca-cola! I think I removed/installed almost a full quart of fluid, but the brakes were noticibly better when I was done.

HTH!

 

Try again, I just finished replacing rotors and pads, after bleeding the brakes were mush. I drove it up to about40MPH and hit the brake pedal hard. The first four times not much but mush! It got better and after the seventh time the brakes were back! Good luck with yours!

 

fwiw, Valvoline synthetic fluid gave my car, and 2 others, a horrible pedal. I switched back to the Ford fluid and it tightened up the pedal. My problem was not a bad , mushy pedal, just a slightly different feeling than normal. I chased it for a while before I got rid of the Valvoline fluid.

 

My brake fluid looked like coffee, I used a turkey baster to get all the fluid out of the reservoirs then bled the cylinders with a Mityvac. I used Valvoline synthetic fluid and my brakes are better than ever now. Did you bleed your brakes in the proper sequence? If you have a Helms manual it will give you the sequence. There are different sequences for different years of our C4's. Now my fluid is so clean it looks like the reservoirs are empty.

 

If someone has a mushy pedal after flushing the system, it's because there is air in the system, not because the fluid is at fault.
Brake fluid is not compressible.

I use Valvoline Synthetic and am pleased with its performance.

Larry
code5coupe

 

I have no problems with the Valvoline Synthetic in my car. My pedal is HARD! As others have stated "mushy pedal" is a symptom of air in the line. If you let the master cylinder go dry you pulled air into the system. I would start over on the bleeding process. For twenty-five years I have bled brakes using the two person method. Last month I purchased a Mity-Vac and it rocks. It enabled me to perform an entire brake system flush in under 30 minutes. I am now one of the Mity-Vac converts.
Mike

 

Obviously a mushy pedal after bleeding is air.
I posted my experience to help the origional poster. I had 3 negative experiences with the same product(valvoline). I chose to share this with him. No need to be critical of free advise. You can simply ignore it if you feel it is wrong. That is what I do.

 

Convert here too, every time I flush brakes on a car I tell myself it was $40 well spent.

For what it's worth, I run Castrol LMA in the Vette with no problems.

Ben

 

I don't know what Valvoline Synthetic is.

But, you definitely don't want to put silicone brake fluid in any vehicle whith ABS.

If you want to read some good information on flushing and bleeding brakes, go to this site and download the first PDF manual:
http://www.phxsyss.com/manuals.htm

Tom Piper

 

Valvoline is the best.

 

Mityvac is the only way to go!

 

Yep! One Mityvac can be used on many vehicles and it is good for more than brakes I used it to change my Power Steering fluid too!!!

Joslinm did you get your brakes fixed?

 

Flushing and bleeding are not the same function -- flushing involves getting all the old fluid and debris out, and bleeding involves just removing the air.

Flushing brake fluid:
There are several ways to flush the brake fluid.
1) You can use pressure by pumping it out with your foot, or use a pressurized tank that pushes it out.
2) Vacuum with a hand vacuum pump.
3) You can use Reverse Fluid Injection, but this forces the fluid up into the master cylinder and you have to keep getting it out of the master cylinder, and it may move debris upstream into the ABS unit -- not recommended.
Many mechanics believe that vacuum flushing does not create a forceful enough flow to dislodge buildup so they recommend pressure flushing.

Bleeding brakes:
1) Pressure, you can use speed bleeders, or a check valve on a hose at the bleeder valve and use foot pressure or a pressurized container to force the fluid down and out the bleeder valve.
2) Vacuum, but it is difficult to get a good enough seal on the bleeder valve to eliminate the bubbles from the stream, giving a false indication of air in the system.
3) RFI - Reverse Fluid Injection (http://www.phxsyss.com/) to force the fluid and bubbles upstream (this is the way it is natural for the bubbles to try to flow) and out the master cylinder reservoir -- if used after flushing, there are no debris to force upstream into the ABS unit.

Tom Piper

 

I did a complete flush a couple of weeks ago with great results, my brakes now work great. Where to start. Start with a couple quarts of good fluid (Valvoline super syn) and the easy way is with a new set of speed bleeders. Use your cars year proper rotation. Turkey baster out as much as you can of the old brake fluid and replace with new supersyn. Pump the brake until your pumping out clear as water fluid, tighten the speed bleeder and go to the next wheel until you are finished. Supersyn is a clear as water and what I took out looked like coffee.