this is not a mercedes question but i trust you won't mind that.

i have just bought a 1969 Daimler 420 sovereign, she's a beautiful old girl and i am rescuing her before she deteriorates any further.

she still drives but the brakes needed a lot of pumping to work, on inspection of the fluid reservoir i have discovered crystals coating the 'bit you pull out'!

if possible i would like to flush the whole system with something before i fill her up again, but have no idea what to do this with.

any suggestions would be very welcome.

many thanks

justin

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W123 200T 1982
Porsche 911 sc 1982
Honda C90 Cub 1995

Crystals in the brake fluid can't be good, to say the least.

I can't think of using anything else other than brake fluid to flush the system. Anything else may contaminate the system and ruin the seals.

For a neglected brake system, it may pay to go futher and disassemble the brake hydraulics at each corner and the master cylinder. Give them a good cleaning, button everything back up, and then give them a good flush with brake fluid. This would make for a good long term fix.

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95 E320 Cabriolet, 159K

I'm with Kestas, I wouldn't flush with anything but brake fluid. A local auto supply that caters to the garage trade can probably sell you brake fluid by the gallon.

Best of luck in the resto,

I allway thought you could clean internal brake parts with alcohol and not damage the rubber???

William Rogers........

I heard that also. But then you have the problem of flushing the alcohol out of the system. Weighed against that, I think the benefits of flushing with alcohol are minimal.

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95 E320 Cabriolet, 159K

thanks guys

i'm going to flush with brake fluid but where i can get at the crystals, if i can't move them with brake fluid, then i'll use alcohol, that way i won't have to reflush the whole system again.

many thanks once again

regards

justin

__________________
W123 200T 1982
Porsche 911 sc 1982
Honda C90 Cub 1995

those with some types of brakes had to have that manufacturer's fluid and others the opposite, such as Dunlop fluid only in Dunlop systems and Girling fluid only in Girling systems, because of chemical incompatibilities between different types of seals and fluids. I know for sure that my old Lancia Fulvia Coupe had Dunlops and my '66 Maserati Quattroporte had Girlings and there were emphatic warnings in both manuals not only about the brand, but which COLOR of fluid from that brand's several offerings. So maybe the crystals are the result of combining incompatible fluids, even adding the current universal DOT type to older stuff.

I assume that a new set of rubber parts in a rebuild kit (if it's really new and not New Old Stock from 30 years on the shelf) will be compatible with current fluids.

Is this one of those Daimlers with the lovely little 2.5 Hemi V8? -- I knew a fellow with an SP-250 in Minnesota in the '60s.

I believe it's the big limousine which is similar to the Jaguar XJ series. I had a Daimler once with the 2.5 liter V-8, but it too was the Jaguar limousine body MKII, a year or two before this Souvereign came out. The SP-250 had that same V-8 engine.
Once in a while I look through the Daimler book I bought around 1978/79 when I bought that '68 MKII for 800 British Pounds with another 150 BP in parts. Picked it up on a Friday afternoon in a suburb of London and drove it in streaming rain for 2 hours through London traffic, on the wrong side of the road... I still shudder when I think about the "roundabouts" to be taken clockwise...There have been few evenings where I have been so exhausted mentally as on that night.
Drove it to Germany the next day. Those were the days...

hi guys,

it is indeed the post mark 2, pre XJ series saloon. many people think that jaguar produced it as a test bed for the xj series that took the world by storm a couple of years later.

it's got 4.2 litres of beautiful, shiny, silent, purring straight six under the bonnet. this car is 35 years old has been used and abused for much of that except the last year or two when it was left standing outside, and yet everything still works as well as the day it left the factory.

i love it, you get the benefit of an old car, wonderfully overengineered/crafted parts, fantastic dashboard with instruments to die for, but with the benefit of modern mechanicals.

my one is very tatty but is responding well to TLC. the only real problem i have is that it is drinking petrol at a rate that i can't live with. i mean by the bucketful. so far i haven't been able to find a leak, but there is a smell of petrol when i drive it so i suspect one somewhere. i seriously hope i find it!!!

i haven't tuned the carbs yet, but don't think that this will completely solve the problem, but you can only hope.

anyway, i'll check with jaguar on the brake fluid type.

many thanks

justin.

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W123 200T 1982
Porsche 911 sc 1982
Honda C90 Cub 1995

Yes, the rubber parts in older British car brake systems are quite particular when it comes to brake fluid. Best to stay with what the manufacturer recommended in the first place, be it Girling, Dunlop, etc.

just my $.02,

Wes

Never seen or heard of 'crystals' in brake system. First thing to do is check owners manual and see if the system required brake fluid (the standard ester based stuff) or hydraulic OIL. Oil will destroy the seals in a system made for the ester stuff, while standard brake fluid will destroy those made for Oil.

The Quatroport used Hydraulic OIL in the brakes, as do Roll Royce, Citroen, and a few others.

If is is the usual 'brake fluid', then isoproply alcohol is safe to use. Not Methanol 'Wood alcohol'. Denatured ethyl alcohol is also OK.

I would disassemble everything and clean it out. If crystals are in the master cylinder -- where else are they and what caused them?

not much progress here as it's been so cold. but i did manage to scrub off enough dirt and oil to see that the brakes seem to be a Lockheed system.

i have contacted jaguar and they are hopefully coming back to me on monday with the type of fluid i should be using.

in the meantime i put the car up on a ramp and discovered dodgy sills, two unjackable jacking points and a serious water leak from somewhere deep inside the engine bay.

ah, the joys of classic car ownership!

thanks once again.

justin

__________________
W123 200T 1982
Porsche 911 sc 1982
Honda C90 Cub 1995