DIY brake bleeding kit?

[Recoil Rob]

I have a 10 year old Ford Explorer on which I have to change out the rotors and pads. The truck still has the original brake fluid in there so I figure it should be changed also.

The last time I bled brakes was 30 years ago; open bleeder, tell girlfriend to push pedal down, close bleeder, yell at girlfriend for not holding pedal down, refill reservoir, etc.

I figure by now someone has come up with a kit that allows a lone DIYer to bleed brakes, any recommendations?

Also, should I drain the system before changing the brake pads? I would think pushing the caliper pistons back in would pump dirty fluid back into the lines.

Appreciate any help.


thanks,

Rob

 

[balane]

just crack the bleeder when you're compressing the piston and the nasty fluid will exit there. Try to never push brake fluid backwards through the system.

I still flow bleed with an assistant on the pedal. I'll even gravity bleed if I have time and other work to do.

 

[BJ42LX]

Options:

1) Motive Power Bleeder http://www.motiveproducts.com/

2) Build your own "motive" bleeder from a small tank sprayer.

3) Speed Bleeder bleeder screws. http://www.speedbleeder.com/

Get something like this, or similar, to catch the fluid:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009OMY9M/?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

[fastbroshi]

The truck still has the original brake fluid in there so I figure it should be changed also.

YES, for sure. Shame on you. Now go haze yourself.

 

[JDS968]

The Motive Power Bleeder is great, been using it for years.

Also, did you buy this vehicle with 10 year old brake fluid? In which case, did you demand a discount equal to the cost of replacing the entire braking system probably sooner rather than later?

 

[Den69rs96]

get the motive. it couldn't be easier. they sell caps for just about any vehicle or use the universal kit and findle with it a bit. If you use the correct cap for your master, it is so simple. pressurize it with air to test for leaks, if no leaks fill the tank with a quart or more of brake fluid, pump up to 10-15 psi and the crack the bleeder on the caliper. just check the tank every now and then to make sure your still 10-15 psi and that you still have plenty of brake fluid in the motive. When the fluid is free of bubbles and clear, move to the next one. Its that easy.

 

[Recoil Rob]

Thanks for the advice, will probably go with the Motive.

I bought the truck new in 2002 and have only put on about 23K in 10 years, it sat for a while, rotors got rusty so everything needs to be changed out.

There's too much other stuff in the garage to fit the truck....

 

[lasthope05]

All you really need is a plastic bottle and some vacuum line that will fit the bleeder. Put some brake fluid in the bottle and insert the vacuum line below the fluid line and connect the other side to the bleeder. Crack the bleeder open and start pumping the brakes. The fluid in the bottle prevents the air from traveling back. There's no need to buy any bleeder kit. Then use anything to **** up the old fluid in the reservoir. I use a sprayer head from a regular bottle. Stick the tube into the reservoir and spray the fluid into another bottle.

 

[jonzer12]

I have a vacuum bleeder and a pressure bleeder. Rather than use those I just put a set of speed bleeders on a vehicle when I buy it. Been doing this for the last 4 vehicles. There is nothing easier. There are only a few different part numbers to cover most domestics and imports so 1 set is one their second vehicle already. Cheap investment.

 

[.mike.]

Another vote for Motive Bleeder.

 

[losabio]

I have successfully used a Motive to bleed brakes on my VW. An alternative to filling up the pump itself is to top off the reservoir on the car and just have air in your power bleeder. You'll need to keep an eye on the level in the reservoir, and will probably need to top off the levels between every corner/every other corner, but it keeps your power bleeder cleaner than the method where you actually pump hydraulic fluid through. I had to use a big pair of cobras to tighten the Motive enough to get a good seal; the cap needed to be tightened much more than I had expected.

 

[WVBrady]

If you use the "pump the brake" method, if you take long strokes out of the normal range of motion the master cylinder may go bad, because of crud in the bore damaging the seal. If you use a pressure system, make sure you have everything secure; if you spray brake fluid it will damage your paint.

 

[balane]

If you use the "pump the brake" method, if you take long strokes out of the normal range of motion the master cylinder may go bad, because of crud in the bore damaging the seal. If you use a pressure system, make sure you have everything secure; if you spray brake fluid it will damage your paint.

This is a very good point that a lot of people overlook. When I have somebody work the pedal for me I put something, like a board, under the pedal to prevent it from pushing the piston too far into the master-cylinder into previously unused areas.

 

[Bigsplash]

The speed bleeders look very interesting, first time I ever heard of them. Looks like you wouldn't need to have to push the pedal all the way to the floor, but could make do with many short shallow pushes

 

[wildgoose]

Anyone here uses a vacuum bleeder instead of a pressure system? pros/cons?

The Motive Power Bleeder sounds great, but some Amazon review indicates trouble getting a good seal with the cap. Just wondering if anyone's using the vacuum system.

 

[JDS968]

I vacuum bleed at work, because I have shop air. That's the only real downside, if you don't have access to a compressor you can't use it. Otherwise it's about the same as using the Motive bleeder with only the brake fluid reservoir filled, in that you can only **** as much fluid as the reservoir will hold, before you have to stop and refill it.

 

[rlitman]

Anyone here uses a vacuum bleeder instead of a pressure system? pros/cons?

The Motive Power Bleeder sounds great, but some Amazon review indicates trouble getting a good seal with the cap. Just wondering if anyone's using the vacuum system.

I've got a MityVac. I wish I could give a stellar review, but the best I can say is "meh . . . "

It is a handy tool to have as a vacuum gauge. I use it with a bottle and a short piece of tubing to empty the master cylinder (it is much better than a turkey baster).

Every time I've used it to vacuum bleed brakes, the bottle is full of foamy liquid, because air is pulled in around the bleeder threads. Maybe that air isn't making it into the brakes, but it still frustrates me.
The rubber fittings also always want to leak on the bleeder screws.
Every time, I have ended up finishing the bleeding the old fashioned way with a helper on the brake pedal.

I have been shopping around for the Motive bleeder recently. They say that the aluminum caps (the "black label" models) seal much better.
Because the brake fluid is exposed to air in the Motive, you must treat it like an opened can of fluid. There are professional systems costing many times as much that have a diaphragm separating the brake fluid from the air pressure, so they can be filled up with a few gallons, and you don't have to discard it at the end of one job, but for me, I don't really need that.

 

[signcrafter]

Anyone here uses a vacuum bleeder instead of a pressure system? pros/cons?

The Motive Power Bleeder sounds great, but some Amazon review indicates trouble getting a good seal with the cap. Just wondering if anyone's using the vacuum system.

I vacuum bleed with a mityvac brake bleeder, http://www.tooltopia.com/mityvac-mv6835.aspx. I bought it because it works on any vehicle and you don't need special adaptors for each vehicle. I only use it a few times a year but it is really nice to be able to bleed by yourself, I don't like relying on others!

I have wanted to make a homemade motive style bleeder from a garden sprayer and go to the junk yard and get a resovoir cap for each vehicle I have and drill a hole in it and run a tube to the garden sprayer. Just haven't had a need to make one since I have the mityvac but someday if I ever get some free time I would like to make one and try it out and see if there is any advantage to vacuum or pressure bleeding. The only thing I don't like about pressure bleeding is if anything goes wrong you could have a mess with all that brake fluid under pressure!

If I didn't already have the mityvac I would probably make my own motive style just because I am cheap, you could make one for around 30 bucks.

 

[RKA]

I usually use a motive bleeder, however in this case I'd advise you pump it out the old fashioned way with a helper (with short strokes as someone suggested).

The issue is the old reservoir might be brittle and you may end up cracking it. That's why another poster suggested pressurizing with no fluid in the motive first to check for leaks. If you create a leak with the motive, you'll end up with a small or large mess depending on how bad it is (yes, happened to me). Think about it, that reservoir was never meant to be pressurized...it's 10 year old plastic and now you're suddenly pressurizing it. If you put a new reservoir on there, have at it.

If you're going to use the motive, I would not recommend using the pressure bleeder dry and disconnecting periodically to add fluid manually to the reservoir. I've accidentally pushed air through the system twice because it appeared the fluid was still in the reservoir. I think they put baffles in some of them to limit the sloshing for those cars with fluid sensors on the reservoirs. In any event, it seems like the baffles near the walls of the reservoir will retain some fluid even though the reservoir has gone dry and if you're not super careful, you'll find air ******* out the other end. No harm done, just a royal PITA to get all those stubborn air bubbles out of the line. Not worth the hassle of trying to keep the motive clean.

As far as the seal on the motive cap leaking, I'm confused. I've been using them for over a decade. There is a rubber "washer" that fits inside the cap. It's easily lost, but if it's there, it should seal fine by hand. No way I would every put a set of channellocks on it.

 

[wildgoose]

Help me understand something. Which ever method you use (2-person, pressure, or vacuum), if you do mess up (don't we all sometimes), and gets air into the system (ie, let the reservor go dry, forgot to turn off the bleeder screw when brake pedal retracts, etc). It's no big deal? ie, just do it all over again until you get the air out?

I recall hearing some say if you get air into the master cylinder, it's really difficult to get it out, and you have to bench bleed it or something like that. If you let the resevor go empty while doing this, wont' you get into that situation?

If all it takes is just keep bleeding and eventually you'll get the new air out, then it seems less intimidating and I may try it myself, since mistakes can be corrected.

 

[bdamico]

The speed bleeders look very interesting, first time I ever heard of them. Looks like you wouldn't need to have to push the pedal all the way to the floor, but could make do with many short shallow pushes

Used to have speed bleeders. They worked great

 

[RKA]

Help me understand something. Which ever method you use (2-person, pressure, or vacuum), if you do mess up (don't we all sometimes), and gets air into the system (ie, let the reservor go dry, forgot to turn off the bleeder screw when brake pedal retracts, etc). It's no big deal? ie, just do it all over again until you get the air out?

It can be a royal PITA to get the air out. Normally I'll go through about 500-700 mls of fluid to flush out my lines. After accidentally pushing air through them, I used up another 2000 mls of fluid. The motive failed to get the air out, so I went to manual bleeding and that got most of the air out (>95%), but you would be surprised what kind of effect a little bit of air would have, and I could feel that in the pedal. The car was perfectly drivable, but wasn't quite perfect yet. I hooked up a computer and cycled my ABS pump a few times, then went back to do a manual bleed again. Got the last bit of air out of the lines.

It's not the end of the world, but a 1 hour job just turned into a 3 hour job over a tiny mistake, so save yourself the trouble and keep a hawks eye on the reservoir. I wouldn't let this stop you from DIY though...it's easy enough. And use a flare wrench to loosen the bleeder valves and do NOT overtighten them when you're done. They are soft and very easy to mangle. If you have an older car and they are corroded in place, apply some heat to the caliper housing then try again with the flare wrench.

 

[buening]

My biggest gripe with the vacuum (i.e. Mityvac hand pump) is the bubbles as previously mentioned. When I bleed brakes I like to watch the fluid entering the clear hose for bubbles, which I'm typically bleeding the brakes due to air in the lines and not to just flush the system. I've had so-so luck with speed bleeders. I've bled quarts of fluid out before and still had air in the system. At that point I pulled out the spare master cylinder cap, drilled a small hole above each bowl and used my air hose blow nozzle with rubber tip and used 10psi to pressure bleed the system. It didn't take long to get it bled nicely.

I used the same pressure bleeding technique with the new hydraulic clutch setup on the mach. You can't use the pedal pumping technique on a new hydraulic clutch system very well, as it aerates the fluid and makes it difficult to get every bit of air out of the system. Clutch systems seem more affected by air in the system than brakes from what I've found. The hydraulic clutch remote reservoir ironically had a small hole in the plastic cap, specifically for pressure bleeding The reservoir was pretty small, which made for constant checking and fillups during bleeding though

Pressure bleeding is a 2-person job but for me it eliminates the aeration of the fluid that mostly occurs when the system is new or has been fully drained. This doesn't really apply to those just flushing the system though, but may be beneficial to others reading this. For a system flush, the Motive setup may be easier since you don't have to check the M/C reservoir constantly like you would with pressure bleeding.

 

[txusa03]

Anyone used this Mityvac MV6835 (Not the hand pump). This one hooks up to the air compressor.

 

[aka Larry]

Another vote for the Motive. I have one with a couple of different caps. Works like a champ. I bleed brakes quite often so it's very handy to be able to do it by myself.

 

[signcrafter]

Anyone used this Mityvac MV6835 (Not the hand pump). This one hooks up to the air compressor.

I do and like it. Read my post a few posts back.