Transmission Fluid in Brake Master Cylinder

MistaMadMike

New Member
Oct 26, 2004
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Hi, regardless of how it got there due to the GF letting some lamer mess around under the hood, theres transmission fluid in the Brake Master Cylinder and the brakes locked up on the freeway because of this.
So, I need to know what all needs to be replaced or worked on. I already know that the pads and rotors are destroyed and need replacing. Do I need to replace the Master Cylinder? I'm not sure how much damage the fluid caused to the Master Cylinder and the effect of the brakes locking up. The lines and everything in its path is contaminated so I guess I'll be flushing it a million times. Do I need to replace everything thats rubber...someone mentioned that.
If you have experienced this or heard/read about this situation..please give me a generalized idea of all what needs to be done so I can approach this with ideas.

Thanks,

Mike
 
Which car did this happen to?

It seized up the calipers?

What exactly did it do to lock up the brakes? The wheels are frozen and you can't turn them? If that's the case, you'll need new calipers. Before i replace anything, i would bleed all 4 wheels VERY thoroughly to make sure there is no ATF left in the lines...then begine replacing components.
 
Yes, it seized up all four calipers and the rotors and pads need to be replaced. I will get the rotors turned & measured to see if I can still use them, its only $5 each rotor to turn them. A shop that looked at it said the entire brake system needs to be replaced (like for example, prop valve, master cylinder, brake lines) but I have a hard time swallowing that up and didnt see why I would have to unless theres a significant reason to do so. I guess I'll just bleed the system really good, examine the lines then replace the rotors and pads and see what happends. :)

Mustang5L5 said:
It seized up the calipers?

What exactly did it do to lock up the brakes? The wheels are frozen and you can't turn them? If that's the case, you'll need new calipers. Before i replace anything, i would bleed all 4 wheels VERY thoroughly to make sure there is no ATF left in the lines...then begine replacing components.


Exactly what I was thinking but regardless of the situation I need this thing back on its feet.

DCjuggalo said:
find the dummy and beat his ass.. then make him pay for your new braking system
 
I did not see if you have abs brakes, if so, the abs unit is likely a problem.

Otherwise, it would probably be easiest to just replace all four calipers, turn or replace the rotors as needed. You could try taking the calipers apart and cleaning with brake cleaner, but thats a low buck method with a minimum chance of success.

The master cylinder is also inexpensive enough to change.

You also change the combination valve, but I would initially just pull it off by itself, and flush the heck out of it with spray brake cleaner.

Then flush all of the lines you can with a bunch of brake fluid.

Then I would collect the costs from the so and so and then have him beat.
 
Man that really sucks. A good friend of mine once bought a 90 park ave off another not so smart friend who had put ATF in the brake system because he thought it was the same as brake fluid. It ate all the rubber seals out of the calipers, slave cylinders, and master. We pretty much had to rebuild the entire brake system. That really really sucked. I feel your pain man.

J.
 
Almost the same happened to me. The funny part is that somone put apparently power steering fluid in the master cylinder and my brakes didn't exactly lock up but something funnier. If you know what ATF/power steering fluid does when it heats up - it expands. So the more I drove around, the tighter and tighter the brake engaged as I drove. But I could go out the next morning and repeat it all over again with no initial brake problems :)

I had to replace the master cylinder and had my brake system "chemically treated" whatever that meant and flushed heavily. That seemd to solve it completely though.
 
Anytime a fluid with seal swelling agents such as ATF contaminates your brake system, everything that is rubber MUST be replaced. That means calipers, wheel cylinders, prop and metering vavles, master cylinder and if abs equiped, the unit will likely fail and you will never be able to remove all atf from the unit anyways so it should be replaced. lines flushed with fresh brake fluid. Any rubber component will soon leak if not replaced. good luck.
 
Thank you for the information guys. Yea, I wasnt sure about the Tranny fluid regarding the reactions to rubber components since this is the first time I came across this situation. Most of the shops I talked to reccomended the same approach by replacing everything and flushing the lines really really good. I guess I have alot of stuff ahead of me. I'm going to start this repair pretty soon and thanks everyone for the posts. I pretty much have all this thought out and now I know what to keep in mind when taking everything apart and buying new parts. :)
 
You may find this useful...

Garden Sprayer Pressure Bake Bleeder

1 each pump type garden sprayer, 1 - 1 ½ gallon capacity (size doesn’t matter much, it just has to be cheap and small enough to be easy to work with)
6-10 feet 3/8” clear plastic tubing
1 each ¼” brass pipe tee
1 each ¼” pipe to 3/8: hose adapter
1 each pressure gauge 0-60 PSI or so – all you’ll ever need is 5- 10 PSI, so the gauge range doesn’t have to be high.
1 each large rubber stopper – this is the hard part to find. It may take some searching to find one that is a snug push fit to the inside of the filler port on the master cylinder. You can use silicone rubber to seal a brass fitting to an old master cylinder cap, but they tend to leak too much.
Home Depot or Lowes has some ¼” brass pipe stock that is continuously threaded in the electric lamp repair department, along with the brass nuts that go with it. This is better than a pipe nipple, since the nuts can be used to secure the pipe in the cap or stopper.
OR if you can’t find the threaded pipe stock,
1 each ¼” nipple, 1 ½”- 2” long

The rubber stopper needs a hole drilled in it for the ¼” pipe nipple or threaded pipe stock. After you drill the hole, use some silicone gasket sealer to seal the pipe nipple as you push it into the rubber stopper. If you used the threaded pipe stock, use the nuts to secure the stock into the stopper.

If you can’t find a suitable rubber stopper, an old master cylinder cap can be used. Drill a ½” hole in the center for the pipe fitting. Cut the brass pipe stock to about 1”- 1 ½” long, the exact length isn’t too important. Push it through the hole in the master cylinder cap and thread one nut on top of the pipe stock where it sticks though the cap. Put another nut on the other side of the cap to lock the pipe stock in place. Apply some silicone rubber gasket sealer to both sides and when it is dry, screw the ¼” pipe that sticks out of the top of the cap into the tee.

Remove the sprayer hose and wand from the garden sprayer. You may find it easier just to cut the sprayer hose off short and connect it to the 3/8” plastic tubing. The idea is that the 3/8” tubing connects to the pickup tube inside the sprayer in a reliable, leak proof fashion. Another alternative is to remove the spray nozzle from the end of the spray wand and connect the 3/8” tubing to the wand. This leaves the hand valve in place and may be useful to start/stop the flow of brake fluid.

The 3/8” plastic tubing connects to the pipe tee using a push on hose barb type adapter. The pipe tee has one port for the gauge, one for the 3/8” hose and the other to connect to the rubber stopper or master cylinder cap that you modified.

Fill the pump sprayer with a quart of brake fluid. Set the garden sprayer on the ground and screw the pump handle down tight, and pump until brake fluid fills the plastic tubing. Then put the modified stopper or master cylinder cap on the master cylinder and pump slowly to make sure that nothing leaks or pops loose. No leaks, continue pumping until you get 5-10 PSI. Put a 6”-12” length of clear plastic tubing on the bleeder ports. Then open the bleeder ports on the wheel cylinders one at a time and bleed until the bubbles are gone. I use a 2 liter soda bottle with a coat hanger to catch the fluid . DO NOT REUSE THE OLD BRAKE FLUID. Repeat the process until you have finished all 4 wheels. You will have to pump the sprayer several times to maintain the 5-10 PSI needed to do the job. When finished bleeding, loosen the pump handle to relieve the pressure, remove the stopper/modified master cylinder cap and test the pedal.
 
"....and see what happens."

This approach is rarely a good idea - it's a PARTICULARLY bad idea when it comes to brake work.

It's almost free to try a good bleed. Buy several large qt. cans of brake fluid. Take a $.99 turkey baster and suction as much out of the resevoir as you can, but not all the way to the bottom. Then fill the resevoir with fluid, and pump it through to one of the front calipers - the larger front lines make it go more quickly. I'd run 2 or 3 resevoir-fulls through to be sure the resevoir has only brake fluid in it. Be sure not to completely empty the resevoir at any time. Once that's done then run a good pint through each of the other 3 calipers. Take it for a VERY careful test drive - stay as much away from others as you can, speeds down til you see how it behaves. If it seems normal - try to get out to a location where you can do some higher speed hard braking. Remember - if seals are weakened - it can be fine until you hit it hard, then you can lose the brakes - so be sure you have the room to safely stop it otherwise.

Inquiring minds want to know - how did ATF get added to the resevoir? Usually, they are so full that only a little bit could be added before overflowing the resevoir.
 
Sounds good, Im taking all this down and taking in consideration of all the good ideas. I like "jrichker's" idea of the garden hose so I'll keep that in mind, very creative. I have a fluid pumper that I used for my rearend awhile back so I'll use that to pump the line.

M.Yount, I understand you quoted me with concern and I will definately proceed this with all caution. This car will be tested in a huge college parking lot since were on x-mas break, so no oone will be around.

Ok, heres the story in case your wondering...I wasnt there when it happened and I've asked my GF how this happened since the cylinder was already full. I usually take a visual of all the fluids once a month so the last time was not that long before this happend. As we all know, if its full...theres so little room to fill it up so Im baffled.
She mentioned that she had her friends husband look at the car and check the transmission fluid on the dipstick. I wasnt too happy about this, noone touches the car! Apparently she thought she was low on tranny fluid so her friends husband was tinkering with it while the girls were in the house talking. I guess he comes back in the house and says he checked all the fluids but she says she didnt actually pay attention to see if he filled anything up.
So almost not even a week goes by and I get a phone call from the GF saying the brakes are feeling stiff and as we were talking I told her to immediately pull over off the freeway and then the brakes were starting to lock up. She's left messages to that chick and her husband but she wont give me the number to call myself...she afraid I'll do something stupid but I'm still looking into this cuz if this guy did an "oops"..he's paying for this some way or another..trust me. From what the GF told me is that the chick is a co-worker so I'm wondering just how much of friends they and if she pissed her off at anytime. Lets put it this way....their not returning our messages so what does that tell ya. I was in disbelief and have had a few people look at the resevoir and without me saying anything and I get the same reaction "how the hell did that get in there" or "who did you piss off" anyhow....payback is a biotch.