I went ahead and changed my brakes this weekend, short of 1 small cut it was a painless ordeal. Here is where it may have gone really bad. I have an 03 that uses DOT 5, i picked up some at the HD dealer because I was a bit low. It poured in just fine, no spills and was a nice purplish color. As the breaks were a bit spongy I bled them, and some light brown stuff came out. Any thoughts on this? Should I be concerned? or just keep riding..

 

DOT 5 starts out purple and changes color over time. If it is coming out brown, I would flush it all the way through until you see purple. In a few weeks I have found mine turns yellowish.

 

Sweet, that is good to know, i was concerned that the previous owner had used the wrong version. I will flush it this weekend.. Thanks for the assistance.

 

Brown fluid suggests it hasn't been changed in a long time! Not good, so flushing through is the right thing to do. I would suggest after flushing that you ride it a while and flush again, just in case there is any of that brown muck hiding in there. Best to get it all out. At the end of the riding season consider stripping and cleaning the master cylinders to make sure there is no corrosion inside.

 

I agree with the posters before, I would flush it. I flush my brake system every year.

 

Yearly? I guess when you think about safety on 2 wheels, and the nominal cost it's probably worth it.

The bike itself is an 03 with 12k miles, my assumption is that no maintenance has been done on it ever, i bet this is the fluid it came with. Its time to start tightening things down and going over it with a fine tooth'ed comb i guess.

Thanks for all the feedback. Much appreciated..

 

The brake fluid should be changed every two years, according to my manual. I do it annually because it is relatively easy and low cost. I also change all of my fluid annually because for 20 dollars, I am already dirty, bike is already up in the air, tools are out and dirty, and it is easy.
I just do not like having a problem, that could of been prevented with 5 minutes of my time.

 

I know this is an old thread, but the same happened to me. My 05 Sportster specifies dot 5, and according to the receipts the owner gave me, he also used dot 5.
So I bought some, thinking I could bleed the spongy brakes...
I sucked out all the original browny gold fluid, and when I poured in the new stuff and it was purple, I had a mini heart attack. I did flush a fair bit through the system, so it should be fine.

Also, I spent 5 minutes watching tlb's avatar above.....