Bleeding brakes

[mrtexas]

Used to bleed brakes the old fashioned way with wife pumping while I bled. Wife never enjoyed the work. Have also tried both vacuum and pressure brake bleeders.

My 49 wagon is a hot rod with a corvette master cylinder under the floor.

This whole exercise started when I discoverd a brake light switch had never been installed by the prior owner. There was a mechanical one that wasn't wired in. So I added an adjustable block that includes a hydraulic brake light switch.

I first tried vacuum bleeding, setup on the left. The vacuum setup doesn't need any special fittings. The gizmo hooks up to garage air and sucks fluid with a hose from wheel cylinder bleed screw. However I found that the bleed hose tends to suck in air as well as fluid so it's nearly impossible to know when you are finished. Never was very satisfied with the vacuum method.

So I bought a pressure bleeder on the right along with a master cylinder cover designed for a remote brake fluid reservoir. You have to have a special cap or cover for your master cylinder. You add brake fluid to the pump bottle and pump up the pressure. But at 15psi like the maximum recommended the cover leaked. So I backed off to 10 psi and it worked like a charm. Very easy to tell when the air is out of the lines.

Pressure bleeder wins hands down. Another winner is to have a remote brake fluid reservoir on the firewall to counteract the master cylinder being under the floor. Haven't mounted it yet though. The original owner did however install a beefy plate to protect the master cylinder from bumps.

[1936 ford pickup]

Hello mrtexas....I agree 100% with the Pressure Bleeder system. I have used it several times and am 100% satisfied.

NOTE: I had no leakage even at 15 psi because the Pressure Bleeder Kit that I had Purchased, even though it had quite a few different sizes of black plastic snap-on caps, I needed to order the correct cap which was not in the kit, which screwed into the top of the Master Cylinder.

Bruce in California

[51 MERC-CT]

After going thru some of the same gyrations, finally installed Speed Bleeders.
No fabrication and a one person operation.


http://www.speedbleeder.com/feature.htm

[paul2748]

Question - I have read about these speed bleeder for some time. While they seem to be great improvement in bleeding, how can you tell all the air is out of the system since you cannot observe the flow at the bleeder from up in the cabin to make sure all the air is out.

[34PKUP]

Originally Posted by paul2748

Question - I have read about these speed bleeder for some time. While they seem to be great improvement in bleeding, how can you tell all the air is out of the system since you cannot observe the flow at the bleeder from up in the cabin to make sure all the air is out.

Read the link that's posted in #3 above

[51 MERC-CT]

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Originally Posted by paul2748

Question - I have read about these speed bleeder for some time. While they seem to be great improvement in bleeding, how can you tell all the air is out of the system since you cannot observe the flow at the bleeder from up in the cabin to make sure all the air is out.

You don't have to see anything, just pump the pedal several times then close the bleeder.
And as stated, read the link.

[tubman]

Another vote for Speed-Bleeders.