Oh Boy - Gummed up brake fluid clogging stuff everywhere... (360)

2000 Ferrari 360 Modena.

So, another issue that seems to be somewhat unique to Ferrari - the gummed up brake fluid problem. Here's another thread that discusses the problem:
https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/360-brake-fluid.283758/

Prior to reading the thread, I tried to pressure bleed the system. No brake fluid came out of the outer side of the front right caliper, so I removed the bleeder screw, and for sure, it was all completely clogged in there (inside the caliper). After poking it free with a drill bit, I then tried to pressure bleed the system, and that didn't work at all - now nothing came out of the entire right front caliper. I asked a gazillion people with dozens of years of experience in the industry, and none of them had heard of this Ferrari brake fluid gum-up BS. This is after replacing the transmission heat exchanger last year (another issue semi-unique to Ferrari). Still, the car is awesome and working on this stuff builds character, right?

So, the plan is to remove all of the brake components and clean everything out, one-by-one. What a pain in the ass. This would be:

- All four calipers
- Master cylinder
- ABS block
- All the steel / hard lines

So, the calipers are basically Brembo calipers that can be cleaned out and rebuilt fairly easily. Likewise the master cylinder can be taken apart and cleaned. The master cylinder appears to be similar to the Audi A4 one, so should not be a problem. But, the main problem is the ABS block. So, how does one clean that out effectively? After spending *hours* on the Internet looking for an answer, it doesn't seem like there is a good one. I could flush the block, and then manually operate each of the small valves with an electromagnet placed on each one. I have the hydraulic diagram so that I can figure out what the paths are and how to do it. But that seems like it would take a long time, and I'm not 100% sure I would be able to get all of the fluid out.

Questions for the people who have experienced this issue before:

- What is the best chemical to use to clean out this old gummed up fluid? First thought would be brake cleaner, but I'm not 100% sure. We don't want anything that will interact badly with any new brake fluid and also don't want anything that could potentially damage the seals.

- With respect to the ABS block, the unit is separated into two parts - the motor/valve assembly, and the ECU electronic part that bolts onto it. On this thread here: https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/360-brake-issues-suggestions.371140/ user 360trev mentioned the following:

"PS. You can swap the ABS ECU and re-use the ABS pump/actuators from ANY Bosch ABS 5.3 equipped car [hundreds of models] which makes this a much cheaper fix than buying Ferrari part numbers [the ecu will be fine]."

This appears to be a likely truth based upon my inspection of the various hydraulic maps, electronics, and also just by simply comparing photos of the Ferrari 360 block to ones for an Audi A4 or similar car. They do appear to be exactly the same for the BOSCH 5.3 ABS system. I know that you can take the computer assembly off and swap it on other cars, so I'm assuming it would work in this case. It would be nice to hear from someone who has done that already though with success.

Any thoughts or additional insight would be appreciated.

-Wayne

 

Seems to be whatever fluid was in there originally? I'm not sure if anyone changed it before I got the car? No clue, but I'm assuming that, since this is a common problem with the OEM / original fluid?

I think I mentioned in the original post, but I've already pressure bled it, and now the entire caliper is completely clogged (both nipples, doesn't move the piston any more). I.E. non-operational...

Thx

-Wayne

 

I went back to check the paperwork on the car - the fluid was last changed in 2014, about seven years ago. They used this Shell Donax UB stuff. It seems to be an unwise factory choice (most of these factory "choices" have to do with branding deals the OEMs cut with manufacturers). I've got some years of experience (I've written a few how-to books on Porsches and BMWs) - I asked around - only one of my colleagues has ever heard of this particular "gelling" problem (on a 993 that sat for many years). All of this gelling after only seven years? Heck, I have a car in my garage right now that hasn't been run in 38 years, and the brake fluid is still viscous and fine. DOT 3 versus DOT 4 of course, but still. A brief amount of research on the Interwebs seems to be reveal that some of the "high performance" fluid used in race vehicles has had some similar issues. Maybe someone mixed fluids at one time in the car's past history. Unknown for sure.

Fcar tech - the issue is not so much cleaning out the one or two spots in the calipers where it's clogged - it's making sure that the entire system is clean and clear. Simply hitting the "trouble spots" will not assure that this crap is cleaned out of the rest of the system?

I'm basically looking for suggestions from people who have done this before on what type of cleaner to use. Something needs to be gentle on the seals and components yet strong enough to dissolve this gel crap?

-Wayne

 

This is indeed good advice, but since using the power bleeder, I'm not getting any flow to either one of the bleeder screws at the front right caliper. This leads me to believe the clog is now located upstream from the caliper. I indeed have new brake hoses that we will be installing. It will be interesting to check to see the condition of the hoses, and to see if the pressure bleeder is pushing fluid through to the hose connection. If not, then the entire system is clogged?

-Wayne

 

Indeed, that is also good advice. I have already ordered a new reservoir from the dealer (some websites are saying that they are no longer available - this dealer had one on the shelf).

Again, my concern is - if the brake calipers (and the reservoir) are all gummed up with stuff, then why wouldn't the ABS block be in a similar condition? It doesn't seem wise to simply clean out the calipers, master cylinder, reservoir, lines, etc, and ignore the condition of the ABS block?

I did order a Foxwell tool yesterday that I will have in addition to the Xdiag tool in my toolchest. According to their website, this tool now supports individual wheel bleeding / actuation valves within the ABS system. Who knows if it actually will work indeed, but for $150, it's worth a try. Perhaps if I can bleed system repeatedly using the tool to actuate each valve, then I can have some confidence that the valve block is not clogged? An NOS block from an Audi A4 can be had for about $300 or so, and it would appear that the BOSCH 5.3 ABS blocks are all identical for the cars that use this system?

-Wayne

 

Hmm, on the surface that comment seems a bit extreme - not a newbie here - I have indeed written a few how-to books on Porsches and BMWs ("101 Projects for Your Porsche 911" and "How to Rebuild and Modify Porsche 911 Engines"), etc. ABS systems, computers, and the like are not unfamiliar. At the end of the day, this BOSCH ABS 5.3 system is pretty much identical to the one used on many other makes and one can always replace components in the car that have been contaminated.

Having said that, it would be unfortunate to have to replace more than is needed in fixing this. The plan is to flush the system as much as possible and measure the output / pressures coming out of each port of the ABS system to see if they are equal / unclogged. Right now, there is zero pressure at the front right caliper. When I get back into town (Monday), I'll disconnect everything and start cleaning. I've got multiple power and vacuum bleeder tools, so between those and a gallon of DOT 4, this is probably a good start.

Indeed, that is my gut as well. However, no one seems to know if pushing fluid through the system will be enough to clear out any blockages, particularly in the ABS valve block?

Thanks,

Wayne

 

Thanks everyone for the feedback and advice. As I mentioned previously, I asked a whole bunch of my colleagues from the Porsche/BMW/Audi world, and none of them have heard of this (except for one that happened with a 993). This seems to be a somewhat unique issue related to these Ferrari cars. Someone previously smartly pointed out that they think it has something to do with the brake fluid reservoir interacting with the brake fluid. This is a pretty good guess in my opinion, as the brake components used in the rest of the system are pretty much standard off-the-shelf components used in plenty of other cars. The calipers are Brembo, I believe, the BOSCH ABS valve block is the same as used on other ABS 5.3 systems, the master cylinder is nearly identical to the Audi A4 one - the only thing that is different is the brake reservoir.

To answer the question about the other calipers - I've been away on Thanksgiving break and I'm heading back today, so I haven't had a moment to check. Besides, as soon as the inside of the caliper got clogged, I immediately stopped what I was doing because it became apparent that more "gel" was getting pushed down to the caliper and I didn't want to further clog anything else. Again, my largest concern is making sure that the ABS valve block is not clogged and gummed up - I not sure there's any way to determine this, and I certainly don't want to push any gel into the ABS block.

This thread from 2010 has some good thoughts: https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/360-brake-fluid.283758/#post-139580938

In particular, this comment:

So, based upon what I've read here (thanks for the input), and what I know about these systems, here is my plan of attack to fix this:

1- I will empty and disconnect the reservoir from the master cylinder and then remove it. I have a replacement one on order. If there is some type of weird interaction between the brake fluid and the reservoir plastic, then perhaps the newer reservoir is manufactured out of newer materials. It's unlikely to be an NOS (New Old Stock) unit from the year 2000.

2- I'll install the new reservoir and then fill it with fresh new brake fluid (regular off-the-shelf stuff). Then I will disconnect the master cylinder from the ABS Block and bleed the old fluid out of the master cylinder. I'll take photos of what comes out. This should hopefully clean the system out from reservoir to ABS block. Then I will reconnect it to the ABS block.

3- I'll remove all of the rubber brake hoses from each corner of the car. I have replacements for these regardless - they appear to have a date stamp of April 2000, so I believe they are original to the car.

4- I'll pull each caliper off of the car and take it over to the bench to inspect and clean it. The front right one was a complete disaster, and none of them are bleeding from the outer bleed nipple, so I'm assuming they are all gummed up inside. These are somewhat standard Brembo calipers (see here: https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/where-can-you-purchase-caliper-rebuild-kits-for-a-360.434047/) so I'll probably opt to replace the seals while I'm poking around and making sure they are clean.

5- I'll blow out (compressed air) and clean out all of the metal lines just to make sure there is no gel in there clogging things up.

6- Reassemble and bleed the whole system again.

7- Bleed out the ABS valve block. The Foxwell tool supposedly has support for bleeding each individual caliper, but I haven't tried it yet for that purpose. With the gel contaminating the system, I want to make sure any old fluid or any old gel clumps are out of the ABS circuits. The only way to do this is to flush the circuits that are activated by the valves in the system. Even then, I'm not sure how one would know if they are clear or not. Simply flushing fluid through the system without activating the valves will replace the fluid in the main part of the system, but not the ABS valve block passages.

Thanks again for all the suggestions. Again, I find it very odd that nearly no one from the Porsche-side of the world has ever heard of anything like this. Another Ferrari peculiarity!

-Wayne

 

Wow, thanks for all the kinds words, but I hardly know it all (unless you're my wife or kids who accuse me of that all the time). Seriously, the books and stuff I've written over the years are compilations of all of the knowledge that I've learned from other really, really smart and experienced people. People who may have not been the best writers or photographers, or may have just been grumpy and crappy communicators. One of my talents, if you can call it that, is culling the info from that community and figuring out how to put it down into words and pictures so that non-engineers and non-mechanics can easily punch out projects. Exhibit A is me asking for assistance here - I have no problems asking questions on stuff I've never encountered before!

Thanks,

Wayne

 

On the contrary, not new to Ferrari and not new to the parts business either. Nowadays, automotive manufacturers are making small-batch quantities of parts like these when needed. Based upon my inspection of the part and the box that it came in, this one looks fairly new in construction. I'm not sure exactly *when* Ferrari transitioned to the grey box for parts supplies, but I believe that is the current incarnation of "the box" (see attached image). Frankly, I prefer the bright yellow.

The date stamp on the one that came out of the car says "99", which fits the fact that the car is a 2000 model year. This one says "10", so it looks like it's at least manufactured 11 years later. Looks like this only fits the 360 too, so they likely had a batch made about 5-6 years after the car was out of production? Possibly due to so many people replacing them! The reservoir is "plastic welded" shut and is impossible to open up to clean out. For what it's worth, the cap has a date stamp of "03".

-Wayne


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