Era brakes Upgrade

[DanEC]

Originally Posted by davids2toys

LOL
Yes, except for the clutch. With your system (3 cans) you could lose all you brake fluid and still have all your clutch fluid.
As far as releasing the pedal., I was talking about the clutch, not the brake. I do understand what you are saying about the brake returning a little fluid.
My question was, do you think that if you lost your clutch fluid because of a brake line leak in the single reservoir system, would you have enough in the clutch master to shift the car for a while? If it was to return some fluid to the reservoir every time you released the pedal, you would be screwed.
Dave

If I understood Bob correctly, it sounds like the clutch has it's own fluid storage in the BMW reservoir. Without having seen one, what I suspect is that there are two dividers in the bottom half of the reservoir that creates 3 fluid chambers. As long as the fluid level in the reservoir is maintained above the dividers, all the chambers stay full. If the front brakes loose a caliper seal and fluid, the reservoir level would fall to the level of the dividers and the fluid in the front brake chamber would continue to fall until the master cylinder sucks air. But the rear brake chambers and the clutch chamber would still have their fluid chambers full up to the dividers and continue to operate normally and have some fluid reserve. Not sure if this is correct but sounds like the approach.

You should not lose the clutch due to losing one of your brake circuits. You should not lose the brakes due to losing the clutch circuit. All three have some independence and redundancy in terms of reservoir storage if one does develop a leak.

[davids2toys]

Originally Posted by DanEC

If I understood Bob correctly, it sounds like the clutch has it's own fluid storage in the BMW reservoir. Without having seen one, what I suspect is that there are two dividers in the bottom half of the reservoir that creates 3 fluid chambers. As long as the fluid level in the reservoir is maintained above the dividers, all the chambers stay full. If the front brakes loose a caliper seal and fluid, the reservoir level would fall to the level of the dividers and the fluid in the front brake chamber would continue to fall until the master cylinder sucks air. But the rear brake chambers and the clutch chamber would still have their fluid chambers full up to the dividers and continue to operate normally and have some fluid reserve. Not sure if this is correct but sounds like the approach.

You should not lose the clutch due to losing one of your brake circuits. You should not lose the brakes due to losing the clutch circuit. All three have some independence and redundancy in terms of reservoir storage if one does develop a leak.

No, not at all. there is only one divider in the bottom. The clutch part of the res is the upper section. The clutch line draws off the middle of the res, (by middle I mean height-wise), so that is basically the clutch compartment. Now the bottom of the res just has a separator wall going across it, thus creating two more compartments. At the bottom of each, there is a brake line, one going to the fronts, and one going to the rear. Now if you blow either your front or your rear brakes, you will definitely lose all your clutch fluid in the res because the brake lines and compartments are located and draw from the bottom! I just found this pic online. You can't see the bottom two lines because they go directly into the foot-box on their way to the master cyls. EDIT: For some reason the site wont upload the pic, first time I have ever had that problem??? If you google images "ERA cobra brake clutch fluid reservoir", it will be one of the first pics. Here is the address.

https://www.google.com/search?q=era+...id%20reservoir

OK, so if you understand it better now back to my question. which was, do you think that if you lost your clutch fluid because of a brake line leak in the single reservoir system, would you have enough in the clutch master to shift the car for a while? If it was to return some fluid to the reservoir every time you released the pedal, you would be screwed shortly because of the brake leak.
Dave

[DanEC]

Ok - I see what he meant now on the reservoir. If you lose a brake circuit - provided your clutch master and slave cylinders are not leaking - you should still have clutch action without problems. What fluid is pushed by the master to the slave when the clutch is disengaged, will return in equal volume to the master when it's engaged. Plus there will be a bit of brake fluid still up in the line from the reservoir running down to the master cylinder to cover minor fluctuations due to fluid temperature, etc. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.