Anyone familiar with bleeding brakes?

[mano77]

Can anyone help with bleeding brakes on a 2000 Civic Si? Any help would be appreciated.

[enzo@af]

What do you need to know? You can e-mail me if you would just like to know the entire process.

[autofan]

hey enzo,
can you post the entire process here as well?
cause it might be of help to others too sometime.

[enzo@af]

*Disclaimer: I'm no expert, but I've done this a few times (changing calipers, changing lines). It's wise to have two people doing it. If anyone spots any bad techniques here, please say so. This is just how I remember it, and could be wrong.*

Now, assuming the wheel is off, and you're sitting there looking at your caliper, right? You should see the bleeder. On my caliper you could open it by slightly twisting it.

Have one person inside the car, and one person at the bleeder. Now, with the bleeder closed, pump up the brakes until the pedal is quite stiff. While still applying light pressure to the pedal, slowly open the bleeder, just enough so that barely any fluid will escape.

Repeat this process until as soon as the bleeder is opened no air comes out (i.e., fluid comes out right away), and make sure the pedal's feel is normal.

Again, I'm no expert...I did this a few times last summer, so I may be missing a few aspects of the job. Brakes are important for driving, so if you're at all uncomfortable doing it yourself, take it to a professional. If you do do it yourself, adequately test the brakes before actual driving.

[JD@af]

Your description is right on! Nice job. However, I do have a few items to add:

-When bleeding your brakes, the purpose is to ultimately purge any and all air out of your brake lines. To accomplish this, what I recommend, in adding to the procedure described above by enzo, is that you first obtain a few bottles of brake fluid. Be sure to have two to four unopened bottles (you want to keep this unopened as brake fluid oxidizes very easily - and this defeats the entire purpose of bleeding the brakes in the first place) of quality brake fluid at the ready before starting. Have the rest open and ready (and I do recommend buying cheaper brake fluid for these remaining bottles). These will be used to feed into the master cylinder under the hood to help flush air out of your brake lines.

-Start with the brake farthest away from the master cylinder (in most front-engined cars, this will be the right rear brake, as most cars I have seen have the master cylinder mounted under the hood in the left section of the engine bay), and work your way to each successively closer brake. Attach a small-diameter hose to the bleeder on the brake caliper and use an empty comtainer to collect the brake fluid as it is discharged from the hose. Once you are no longer seeing any bubbles in the fluid being discharged from the hose, you can start adding fluid (in the master cylinder) from one of the unopened bottles of quality brake fluid, which is what you want to reside in your brake lines. Add enough so that you are confident that all the fluid residing in your brake line for that particular brake is the good stuff.

-Repeat the above process for each brake, working your way to the left rear, right front, and ultimately left front brake calipers (of course keeping in mid that the order of execution for bleeding the brakes depends upon the location of the master cylinder for your particular car). Do this for all four brakes, remember to top off the master cylinder (again with the good stuff), and you have successfully bled your brakes.

[sageuvagony]

when I bought this car the fluids were not changed when they were supposed to.. the brake fluid may have never been changed... Would it help if I were to change my fluid? would it help my braking? i just know that when I slow down I have to push the brake all the way in to make it stop where-as other cars like infiniti's or Nissans all you do is just tap the brake and it slows down right away (super sensitive). are my brakes not that sensitive because its a honda or what? I also bought a can of brake parts cleaner.. if I change my brake fluid and clean the brakes, will it be alot better at stopping? My 2 front pads were changed about 3 months ago.. Any suggestions? Thanks