What would be the best method to change the Brake Fluid?? Would I just drain the Brake resorvoir and replace the fluid and than bleed the brakes to get the Dot 4 into the lines? How much fluid do I need? What are the best brands to get and which ones do you stay away from. I'll probably be changing to the Hawk pads at the same time plus install all my suspension parts.

Thanks

 

I would think a good way is to not drain anything except siphon some out of the resivoir, top it off with new fluid and start bleeding (flushing) and pumping more new fluid thru to displace the old. You don't want to introduce air and have to deal with that. Not sure how you flush the ABS. The best way to do this job right might be to take to a shop where they can pressure bleed (flush) the entire system.

As far as brands go, I'll take a brand name over generic.

I found this interesting letter about brake fluids. Check it out.

http://www.xs11.com/tips/maintenance/maint1.shtml

 

I used prestone Dot 4 that I picked up at Wal Mart. I bought 4 small bottles for about $2.50 each.
It's a piece of cake. If you are going to flush the whole system, pick up about 4' of fish aquarium air tubing, 4 empty plastic water bottles, and a little bailing wire(could use zip ties, twist ties, or even tape).
drill a whole in the water bottle lids just slightly smaller than the hose. Cut the hose into 4-1' pieces. Put the hose pieces into the bottle lids so they are 1" to 2" into the bottles. put the other end of the hose onto the bleeder nipples at each calliper. You have to use a pair of needle nose pliars to "flair" the ends of the hose so they fit over the bleeders. Then use the bailing wire (or whatever) to hang the bottle at the same height as the bleeder nipple or higher. I used the lug bolts to hang the bottles on but it is best to have the bottle at the same height as the bleeder screw. just make sure that the hose points upward for the first 4" or so where it is connected to the bleeder.

Then, crack the bleeders, pump the brakes until reservoir is just empty (don't pump past empty or you will get air in the system), fill reservoir with fresh fluid, pump until you see clean fluid and close bleeders.
You will first see clean fluid at drivers front, close that one. Pump some more, then you will see clean fluid at passenger front, close that one. Pump, then, drivers rear, close. Pump, then, finally passenger rear. Top off reservoir. All done!!

You can't get much fluid out of our reservoirs by sucking it out the top because of the design. It works better to just do it like I said.

There is a pic of my little bleeder contraption on an earl's brake line thread i have around here somewhere.

 

How do you get all the fluid out of the clutch line?

 

Here are a set of Ford instructions I found somewhere:

 

Interesting how it tells you only to use DOT 3 !!!

I guess this only matters if you change to the wrong fluid.

 

When bleeding with a bottle catch tank, the tube should extend to near the bottom and it should already be submerged some fresh fluid. With the bleeder open after you push the pedal down, and then release it a vacuum or negative pressure is caused by the retracting piston. This can cause a negative pressure throughout the system and you are at high rish of sucking air into the calipers ... even if you have a tight seal with the hose thru the cap as 1 atmosphere of pressure is trapped in there. For this reason you need a helper to close the bleed valves or have installed a bleed vavel with check. Having the tube already submerged in some fresh fluid creates a liquid seal, thus preventing air from running up the tube while the bleed valves are cracked open.

 

Uh it doesn't really matter....

That's like only using a certain kind of oil filter or oil because the manual tells you to do so. Switching from 3/4 to 5 can be trickier. Also there's really no point of switching from 3 to 4, just a higher boiling point.

 

Castrol GT-LMA is pretty good stuff.

Personally, I use ATE typ-200 in my performance cars. It has a very high wet boiling point, and is less hydroscopic than other brands.

DO NOT USE DOT 5 IN AN ABS CAR. It has properties that makes it very bad for ABS.

 

DOT 3, 4, 5.1 are glycol based brake fluids (safe for our systems).
DOT 5 is silicone based and will cause problems in our brake systems.

I normally use a MityVac brake bleeder kit to flush out the hydraulic system once a year with fresh Prestone DOT 3 brake fluid.