went to the track Sunday clutch performed perfect no dead pedal nothing almost 12K miles on the car...origional clutch. Anyways decided to do some preventative maint. per rangers method....sucked out the old fluid from the reservoir cleaned with towel filled w/ prestone dot 4 synthetic....pumped clutch 30 times repeated(even though wasnt hardly dirty this time....maybe the engine needed to be running?....anyways drove it today probably 15 miles....came home and went to repeat....black as the first time....if not darker(maybe from messing with it, ie pumping fast. Heres a few pics....Ill keep repeating until it remains clear
first pic...is the origional and a mix of the first change(which i said was not even that dirty thus lighter than day 2's sample)



Day 2 after approx 15 miles of driving....just as black as day one...will repeat until clear

 

notice in the 3rd pic....that clutch fluid is no joke....note the bubbling paint on my window trim....that sux...just noticed that

 

Yea!!! that's why you don't want to be getting any of it on your car.
Keep changing it....it will eventually get to clear. I usually change my resivior out at least once a month.....that's usually when it starts looking murky.

 

it did the same thing to the paint on my freezer outside.

 

Looks like prune juice. I take brain surgery like precautions when it come to paint vs. brake fluid!

 

Keep at it, took about 20 times before mine remained clear.

 

I had to do mine several times.

 

Same here, I thought it would never stay clear. Still a good idea to change it at every OCI because of the hydroscopic nature of brake fluid.

 

I've heard some people say that you should never open the cap, because of how fast it absorbs moisture..........but as often as I change mine I can't see it being an issue.
However I atempted to find out some factual data about just how fast the absorbtion rate is.............no luck finding anything out on the internet............called Prestone and was directed to Dupont as they said they are the ones who manufactures their brake fluid........called Dupont and got bounced around and finally to someones voice mail that never called me back.
So if anyone has any info on just how much moisture brake fluid absorbs in a given time span I would appreciate you sharing that with us.

 

I agree that changing the fluid from the reservoir is a good idea. But for those of us that have problems in which changing fluid from the reservoir doesn't solve... I highly highly suggest bleeding the slave from underneath the car. After I burnt the clutch pretty bad back in January, the pedal never felt the same after probably 10 or more fluid swaps. I finally decided to inspect the clutch myself (because they told me at the dealership that my car has no clutch inspection plate. They'd have to remove the entire driveline to see it, and thus charge me about $800 or more in labor), and while at it, I'd bleed the slave. The clutch was fine. I removed a crapload of clutch dust from the bell housing with brake fluid. Bleeding the slave isn't the most fun thing to do, but it totally made an improvement in clutch pedal feel. It took about 10 bleeds, but when it was done, the pedal felt more firm and consistent through its travel. The fluid that initially came out was black as could be! It's such a small amount that goes into the slave, so it's no wonder why simply swapping fluid at the reservoir doesn't get all the nasty fluid out of the slave.

So again, if you have sticky pedal issues, or your pedal just doesn't feel the same... try bleeding at the slave. I've even done a few burnouts since then, and the pedal never once got soft. Plus bleeding the slave gave me an opportunity to install my LAPD tunnel plate!

 

i'll do an experiment at work over the weekend and tell you. I'm kind of interested myself.

 

cool

 

Every weekend, I change out the reservoir fluid with fresh DOT4. I pump the clutch multiple times and repeat exchanging the fluid in the reservoir till it looks the same as the fluid I put in. I started this at 3000 miles and I keep the old fluid in a gallon milk jug. The car now has 13.5 and my gallon jug is over half full with clumps of black stuff floating, black sediment at the bottom, etc. I should post pictures to show the none believers that this really is something they should consider doing. To think of what I am preventing by spending the 5 minutes to do this every weekend is worth it to me. Recently I let it go for 3 weekends without changing fluid. When I changed fluid, there was a thick layer of black sediment at the bottom of the reservoir. I will continue from now on exchanging the fluids every weekend.

 

Ok...so i put ~80ml (weighing 80.719 gms) in a beaker and let it sit out (24hrs) in the lab, which is conditioned to 70F +/- 5 and 65% +/-5%RH. Today the 80ml's weighed 82.6348 gm(an increase in mass of ~2.4%. I will let it sit over the weekend under he same conditions and see what 96hrs will do.

Nick

 

Thank you very much for the info.
But who in their right mind would leave the cap off for 24hrs?....that person deserves to have clutch problems.
So the 96hr test should tell us if the absorbtion rate is linear....right?
Could you do a test of how much absorbtion in say 30 min. and at 1hr.?
Also after the 1hr. and or 24hr. test how much did it drop the boiling point. If there is little to no change in the 30min. 1hr. from original wieght, then you could maybe replace what's in the resivior and test again in a few weeks and see how much is absorbed just from being in the system, through hoses, gaskets and so forth.
I'm also wondering at what point it would reach a saturation level to where it "stops" absorbing moisture.
I'd bet Ranger would love this info as much as I do.......for all those nay-sayers.
Thanks again for the testing

 

Very dedicated to the cause. Prestone DOT 4 for me in the brake system and clutch reservoir.

 

what do you have to remove to bleed the slave?...reachable or is it a squeeze with the xpipe off? Ive been doing the reservoir fluid cleaning...still coming dirty after 4 or 5 tries...dont think its been done before my car has 12k miles....dont have any clutch issues either....but i dont want any
thanks
Kurt

 

Dealer, and checking around said that I may have pressure plate & or clutch plate that may be on recall. Only way was to pull running gear and if not matching recall #'s would owe for the take apart?? I can't believe that GM hasn't by vin#'s been able to take of customers? I gota try and deal with dealer. Think a letter to gm is in order also....

 

Absolutely!!!
No way in hell am I going to let someone take apart my car to see if it's under recall and then have to pay for the tear down if it's not.
GM certainly knows by vin# if your car was part of a recall............and if their unsure then they sould pay to find, out not you.

 

that's a great experiment...

when you're done with your 96 hour test, try elevating the temp (we use 140 for tests like this) of the fluid for a couple of hours and then put it back on the scale. See if it goes back to where you started, or is even less. If you go back to where you started, then you can attribute it to increase due to water absorbtion, if it's less, then there was water, or some other compound that cooked off.

another interesting experiment for fluids is to get an exact measure of the volume of your sample, then put it under a vacuum, and after the entrained and disolved air is boiled off, check the new volume. you'd be shocked at how much air comes in the fluid.

in the aerospace industry we work with "hardened" hydraulic fluids. Pull the air out under a vacuum while in a sealed system. If your brakes or clutch were sealed, you'd get the hardest pedal possible.