Will be doing my first brake job soon. How much fluid will I need to bleed the brakes and replace all the old fluid? Also, any advice on good brands of brake fluid? I'm thinking of sticking with a DOT 3 fluid which is oem spec, but how about 'upgrading' to a DOT 4 fluid?

 

dot 4 if you do a lot of stop and go and or drive it hard a lot. ive got in my car and its just fine.

i only needed 1 case of it

 

Get some ATE Typ200 or ATE Super Blue(same fluids, different colors) It is an excellent fluid, DOT4 with a very high wet boiling point(a good thing) and its under $15 for a liter which will be more than enough.

I dont think any other fluid comes close for the money.(youll spend over twice as much to get marginally better fluid)

 

Thanks maven, did you see my post in the other thread about drum maintenance?

 

maven is right, the blue stuff makes it easy to see when you have gotten all the old out of your lines, I just did a full brake job using the ate super blue

 

The ATE Blue makes it very easy to bleed brakes.
Suck the old stuff out of the master with a turkey baster and refill with the ATE.
It takes about 3/4 of the 1 liter can to do the job.
Get a clear hose to slip over the bleeder and a water bottle to catch the fluid.

FYI: I find that after you use the blue ATE the dye is very strong and the Gold ATE ends up looking more like blue.
We have a Motive Products bleeder www.motiveproducts.com and the clear hose is now a blue tinted hose.

 

yeah I noticed that it dyed the tube I used pretty blue, but I dont mind. Made my life that much easier, and yeah a 1liter can will do you fine. When I changed my lines, I had the system gravity bleeding constantly and I didnt even finish off the 1lirter can. I probably wasted a ton too