Fr3AkAzOiD
Fr3AkAzOiD New Reader
4/10/14 12:34 a.m.

While I flush the brake fluid on my track cars regularly by DD just seems to get ignored.

Just hit 100k miles in my '08 Cobalt and catching up on maintance so flushed my clutch and brake fluid. Fluid had sat too long, wasn't black like I have heard from some but it was close to some spinach shake color.

Backs bled fine, fronts had some rust in the fluid, pulled the bleeder screws and cleaned them as they had some buildup on the inside, the outside was rust free. Bled them some more but was still getting a little bit of rust color and the occasional small flake in the fluid. Flushed till I wasn't getting flakes and only trace amounts of rust color mixed with clean brake fluid.

My question is, now that it's flushed and moisture is out of the brake system am I ok, or will the rust get worse?

Also, what steps should I take at this point as I do plan on keeping the car for as long as possible?

Kenny_McCormic
Kenny_McCormic UberDork
4/10/14 1:01 a.m.

If nothing is leaking now, don't worry about it, I've flushed all sorts of scary crap out of working brakes and they kept working. You get rust when the moisture content of the fluid gets too high, and the anticorrosives in the fluid can't keep up. So change the fluid more often than every 6-7 years.

DrBoost
DrBoost PowerDork
4/10/14 6:37 a.m.

Yeah, the rust comes first. You've already found that. The black fluid is from the rubber breaking down. That comes after serious neglect. Fresh fluid should just about stop the rust progression, but not totally.

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