Maintenance Update - Break Oil Flush:
Its been over 3 years owning this Pajero Mini, and since day one of ownership, break oil condition bothered me, as it was pretty dark colored, not clear. There's no reducing of it or anything and breaks work pretty good, so I never touched it.
I stumbled upon a video by EricTheCarGuy regarding flushing the break oil. It's pretty old, but relevant.
I followed though and decided to give it a try. And before that, I actually asked my regular mechanic for the task. His answer was... Breaks are very critical things, you must not touch them if they are working okay.
So, in last holidays, I thought to do it, it can't be harder than replacing AC compressor bearing.
With a help of syringe, took out about 50% of break oil from its reservoir in engine bay, and added back new, same amount. Its important not to take the fluid less than minimum mark, if it gets to min mark, top it up with new break oil to max level again.
Created same bottle and pipe fitting for bleeder valve:
Start from rear tire, and there's only one bleeder valve for both rear wheels and its mounted on passenger side of rear wheel fitting. Couple of smooth pushes to break paddle and check the fluid going to bottle,
Yeah, it's in pretty bad condition. About 15 or so more pushes to break paddle,
Yup, nice and clean... Just just tight the bleeder valve back, this is what bottle looks like,
And reservoir in engine bay already have clean break oil and even base of it now visible,
Front have individual valves, and both sides were pretty okay, there was already clean oil coming out from bleeder valves, but I still did few pushes to break paddle on each side just to be sure.
Everything put back up, and break was feeling bit more responsive. There was some contamination which might be observing some pressure when break was applied, bit of soft feeling... that was gone after this exercise.
It took about 1 hour total and 80% from new break oil bottle. I read that it is recommended to flush break oil every year, but I guess every 2 or 3 years is good too.
So, this is it... If you are looking to perform same, make sure you watch the video I linked, and note important safety measures. And give a test run before taking taking out the car back on main road.