brake bleeding questions

[AutostradaVR4]

OK, ill start by admiting im fairly ignorant and have never bled brakes before. I understand the concept though...

so firstly, im having a problem. There is way too much air coming out. My dad brought me a vacuum bleeder thing that basically from what i understand is supposed to allow me to do it just by taking off the fill cap and sucking out the fluid. So i pulled the cap and hooked up the pump, cracked the bleed nipple and started to pump it up. 30 minutes later ive only got out about 1/2 cup of fluid and the rest air. All the while watching the fill resivoir (master cylinder?) to make sure it stays full. Added about the same amount as i bled off. Am i doing something wrong? I though i may have had the nipple too loose and air was sucking in around it, but if i tighten it any further NOTHING at all comes out. So im stumped. How do i tell if the air is coming out of the lines or leeking in around the bleeder?

Secondly, is there an order i should do them in? i was just gonna do backs then fronts...but then i learned on my friend's WRX he has to do them is a specific order.


i know...kinda nooby questions...but HOOK A BRUTHA UP! lol

[Stealthee]

Work furthest from the master to the closest.

[sLADe781]

I'm interested to know too because I want to flush my brake fluid out this summer...

I thought I read something somewhere that we're supposed to start the car when bleeding!?! It never really made much sense to me but is that true!?! LOL And uh Stealthee, is it possible to gravity bleed the brake system like the clutch?

[jason_bet]

possible.. sure.. anything is possible.. but its not going to work though.. if you want to do it alone.. go to auto zone then have a kit for like 20 bucks that lets you blead the breaks without any ones help its like a vacume tester too..

[Linebckr49]

if you want to do it alone, get some speed bleeders. 3SX sells them, but i know AutoZone carries them too. just make sure you get the ones that fit your specific brake caliper. there are 7mm and 10mm sizes. not sure which size you have.

a second person makes brake bleeding much much faster. one person can pump the pedal while the other opens/closes the bleeder.

[Stealthee]

Yeah gravity bleeding the brakes is going to take a good amount of time. Lots more line to go through.

[sLADe781]

So hmm....you could still gravity bleed the brake system eh? Interesting...would it be bad if I cracked open all 4 at once and just gravity bled it like that? Sorry if that was a dumb question... -_-

But yeah, I kinda want to stay away from having to open and close the bleeder too much because when I was bleeding my clutch system, we actually stripped the bleeder and had to use the one from the old slave. So yeah, I've been thinking about either getting bleeders or gravity bleeding since it'll for sure not let any air in...

[Stealthee]

You stripped it? A closed end wrench has always done the trick for me and never stripped a bleeder.

[Linebckr49]

you don't need to apply much torque at all to open/close a bleeder. you only need to turn it maybe 1/4-1/2 rotation to open/close it during bleeding. when you're done bleeding that caliper, you might tighten it a tad more, but you should never apply so much force that you strip the bleeder.

[91STT]

Originally Posted by BlinkRA182

so firstly, im having a problem. There is way too much air coming out. My dad brought me a vacuum bleeder thing that basically from what i understand is supposed to allow me to do it just by taking off the fill cap and sucking out the fluid. So i pulled the cap and hooked up the pump, cracked the bleed nipple and started to pump it up. 30 minutes later ive only got out about 1/2 cup of fluid and the rest air. All the while watching the fill resivoir (master cylinder?) to make sure it stays full. Added about the same amount as i bled off. Am i doing something wrong? I though i may have had the nipple too loose and air was sucking in around it, but if i tighten it any further NOTHING at all comes out. So im stumped. How do i tell if the air is coming out of the lines or leeking in around the bleeder?

I had that problem too. To get around it I took out the bleeders and wrapped the threads with teflon tape.

[talskinyguy]

Go buy a 1 person brake bleeding kit, they are stupid cheep. Follow the directions. It wont take long at all.

[olkevinlo]

the best way of bleeding your brakes, i've found, is to have two people to it. it's quick and doesn't take much effort. Get a hose and something to put brake fluid in and hook it up to the right rear wheel first. have someone pump up the brake pedal. now crack the bleeder screw and just have ur partner keep pumping until a solid stream of clear fluid comes out. do the same with the left rear next, then the front right, then the front left.

on a 3kgt, make sure u're filling the actual resevoir and not the vacuum cap. at the master cyclinder, there's a black cap that takes up air space to make up for not enough brake fluid. when u fill up, just make sure there's no black rubber thing in the resevoir.