Oh.... I'm getting it. Here we used to water ski in the irrigation canals, pulled by a car on the adjoining gravel road. Well, that was popular until the Bureau of Land Management and Irrigation district put up chains to prevent traffic. Found a dead illegal border crosser in the water one time but that was 40 years ago. The saga continues with brake cylinders now. The new repop rear master requires DOT 5 but the original wheel cylinder isn't DOT 5 nor does any rebuild kid for the wheel cylinder specify what material is used. I'm talking about the sidecar drum wheel brake. I'm supposing not DOT 5. All the references say to used DOT 3 or 4 but the question is what effect that would have on the new master?
Now everybody got it with the sledge....only once go down a Olympic bob/sledge track...hmmmmm.
The DOT indication number should be related to the viscosity respectively the temperature range. nothing else. I do not know if the numbers go in one or the other direction for temp/viscosity range. What I am sure of, is that it does not have relation to material toleration.
By the way, for 2 years I have now synthetic break fluid in use for the Kawa KLR and got amazed that even when it became old, no water evaporation gave bad surprises on steep long slopes any more. Until now the seals and hoses work fine.
So I hope that I will not have bad surprises with material issues due to synthetic break liquid..opposite to synthetic engine oils where you get easily problems with seals in old engines.
I do not think you would get any trouble using any of the 3 grades in your master and receiver pistons.
Good luck
Sven
Sven
I think I have the answer about the DOTs. The repop master cylinder I received specified DOT5 but could be used for either drum or ABS/disc brakes by taking out some internal pieces. ABS/disc run hotter so DOT 5 came out with a higher wet boiling point. Testing is done under the assumption of 3% water content. Rubber swelling is the eventual result of heat exposure to boiling and aging rather than interaction with fluid. Different fluids affect boiling points. The DOT5 spec covered all possibilities but did not preclude use of DOT 3 or non-synthetic DOT4 (Like Castrol LMA) for drum systems. The maker was just precluding liability by stating the highest heat tolerance. Meanwhile, I saw an example of a mixed DOT 3/DOT 5 outcome. The owner of a newer bike put DOT 3 into a DOT 5 system. It took a while (months) to turn gummy. Then he experienced lockups and delayed brake response. Point is that they should not be mixed but if the system is completely one or the other without mixing even residue, drum brakes should be okay with either. For disc, going to DOT 5 is a good move but only if any pre-DOT 5 is cleaned out first. I'm going ahead with DOT 3 since DOT 4 LMA (non-synthetic) is no longer in production. What you get now is DOT 4 synthetic as replacement. AZP
Still no progress getting those crash bars back on. It seems that there's an extra muffler clamp in the way on both sides. The previous owner put new generation fishtails on and changed the configuration. The gondola is off for installing those side trims (today) and before it is over, I'll have to take off the rear half of the bike to get those bars back on.... bags, rails, and probably mufflers. There's no room to spin the bars around the top nut with all that stuff there. Darn! - AZP
