wesk18

yea my friend put power steering fluid instead of brake fluid can that damage his brakes and what else??
he has a 91 accord 4dr lx

2008fijibluesi

will definitely damage **** if you dont fix it asap. my recommend for a fix would be to flush that **** by bleeding the brakes really good with brake fluid...but first soak up all the power steering fluid in the reservoir, so you dont push anymore psf through the lines. im not sure, but i think if you fix it soon enough he'll be ok

wesk18

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 2008fijibluesi &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">will definitely damage **** if you dont fix it asap. my recommend for a fix would be to flush that **** by bleeding the brakes really good with brake fluid...but first soak up all the power steering fluid in the reservoir, so you dont push anymore psf through the lines. im not sure, but i think if you fix it soon enough he'll be ok</TD></TR></TABLE>
ok thanks man

sony224422

i beleive hes gunna be f'ed.

from what i can think of, the power steering fluid is not rated for the temps, plus brake fluid does not mix well with other liquids.

johnlear

Not good, don't know quite how not good, but probably very not good.

The ATF may not be compatible with the seals, so aside from any other considerations he needs to clean it out, properly. For starters I'd empty the reseviour then pump a large amount of methylated spirits though the system to clear the ATF out. Then I'd disconnecct all the lines and blow them through with compressed air (this might not be good for ABS components or proportioning valves, so I'd disconnect these as well). Then I'd take the master cylinder and all the calipers and ABS and the propertining vales etc off to disassemble and clean them out before putting it all back together.

It will be a huge pain, but brakes are not something you should cross your fingers and hope for the best with. However, don't just accept my opinion, get advice from a brake specialist.

YeuEmMaiMai

you need to purge the brake system. ps fluid may catch fire under the extreme heat......

2008fijibluesi

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by johnlear &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Not good, don't know quite how not good, but probably very not good.

The ATF may not be compatible with the seals, so aside from any other considerations he needs to clean it out, properly. For starters I'd empty the reseviour then pump a large amount of methylated spirits though the system to clear the ATF out. Then I'd disconnecct all the lines and blow them through with compressed air (this might not be good for ABS components or proportioning valves, so I'd disconnect these as well). Then I'd take the master cylinder and all the calipers and ABS and the propertining vales etc off to disassemble and clean them out before putting it all back together.

It will be a huge pain, but brakes are not something you should cross your fingers and hope for the best with. However, don't just accept my opinion, get advice from a brake specialist. </TD></TR></TABLE>

first of all, it was power steering fluid not atf. and definitely never blow compressed air through your lines. derr. try what i told you before anything else, and i think youll be fine. bleeding that **** really good...you want to have your reservoir full when you start and keep bleeding all the brakes until your reservoir is almost at a quarter. (do not let it go below a quarter cuz if it goes empty, and air gets in there, then you have to start all over again). fill the reservoir up and repeat this process a bunch of times. the ptf and psf are gonna look a little different so you should be able to tell if you have gotten all the psf out by looking in the container that you are bleeding the brakes into.

johnlear

ATF or PSF, the point still stands. I'd just posted on another site about the use of ATF in some manual boxes, it was just a slip of the mind due to tiredness.

Blowing air through the lines won't hurt anything as long as it's only the lines, all else disconnected. I should have been clearer.

I think the real issue is the possibility of traces of PSF damaging the piston seals, which it may or may not do, but better safe than extremely sorry. Even with copious flushing using brake fluid it may be hard to remove all the PSF from the walls of the system and from between the pistons, seals and cylinder walls.

If you're trying to clear the system only by bleeding with brake fluid, then at the least you want to pass a lot more fluid through than you normally would for a normal bleeding in an attempt to get all the PSF out (and you may not succeed even then, it's sticky oily stuff and I'd be surprised if it was soluble in brake fluid), so initially getting air in there is the least of your problems, it will bleed out considering how much fluid you should be passing through the system.

I was suggesting to flush the whole system first with methylated spirit because this is likely to have a greater affect on dissolving the PSF than brake fluid probably would, then to clear the remnant meths from the lines (alone) with compressed air. Even so, after this I'd still dismantle all the cylinders and valves etc in the system for proper cleaning, traces of PSF may still be in there despite any flushing, bleeding etc.

2008fijibluesi

ok...well i pretty much agree with you on everything except blowing air through the system. i definitely agree on bleeding way more fluid through the system than you normally would...thats what i was suggesting too. and the methylated spirits beforehand is probably a really good idea. i just dont know about blowing compressed air through 18 year old brake lines. and it will make it really hard to bleed the brakes correctly. all this dismantling and such doesnt sound like something that a guy who put psf in his master cylinder would be able to do and reassemble correctly...you know what i mean