ive never bled my brakes before and although i know roughly how to do it im still feeling uncomfortable with playing around with it when im not entirely sure or what im doing… i tried searching and tried the teg tips but couldnt find anything on EXACTLY how to do this or where the bleeder valve is located.
any tips would be appreciated
thanks
It’s almost impossible to bleed the brakes without taking the wheels off, but once you have them off you’ll see the bleeder valves on the calipers. and with any luck, they’re not seized to the point that they break when you try to loosen them.
You’ll need two people to do it properly. One wheel at a time (there’s a proper order too, but I cant’ remember what it is), put a plastic hose on the valve and put the other end in a little cup or something. This way you can see the air bubbles and catch the old brake fluid. Get the other person to pump the brake pedal til it’s firm. Then, while they’re putting pressure on the pedal, loosen the valve until the pedal hits the floor. Repeat until all the air is out of that line. Refill brake fluid. Repeat for remaining wheels.
DO NOT ALLOW THE PEDAL TO HIT THE FLOOR. The pedal should only be pushed part way to the floor. Then the pressure pumped up and the pedal pushed part way to the floor again as you let fluid out. If you let the pedal go all the way to the floor you can do damage to the master cylinder.
in addition to the above:
-start w/ the caliper furthest from the master cylinder, and work your way closer. So pass ride rear, driver side rear, pass side front, driver side front.
-make sure you check the fluid level often! you need to make sure there is fluid in the reservoir the whole time, if you get carried away and forget to check you can empty out the reservoir and then it’ll start sucking air into the lines.
thanks guys
anyone have a pic of exactly where the valve is or what it looks like?
take off your wheel and look, seriously…
from what i understant, you unscrew the bolt holding the break line to the caliper and there is a small hole in that bolt… is this the valve?
Originally posted by rallysportDA
from what i understant, you unscrew the bolt holding the break line to the caliper and there is a small hole in that bolt… is this the valve?
no, that is not the valve…DO NOT remove the bolt that holds the brake line onto the caliper.
Like the others said…just get out there and look at your calipers, you seriously can’t miss it. There are only 4 things you can unscrew from your caliper (fronts):
- caliper mounting bolts (2)
- brake line bolt
- bleeder bolt (don’t remove the bolt, just loosen it)
once you’ve located it on your front calipers you can’t miss it on the rears (even if you look at the rears first its pretty darn self explanitory).
Oh, and i just noticed that the others left something out… so i’ll go over it again. Once you have the car up in the air, a friend in the driver seat, the bleeder bottle hooked up to the valve and have your 10mm wrench out:
- loosen the bleeder, say “Down”
- your friend responds by pushing the pedal down
- tighten the bleeder, say “Up”
4)your friend responds by letting up on the pedal - repeat steps 1-4 until you don’t see any bubbles anymore, and then move to the next caliper.
You don’t have to take off the rear wheels. The valve can be reached if you crawl under the car. It is easier with the wheel removed though.
Originally posted by 91IntegGS
[B]in addition to the above:
-start w/ the caliper furthest from the master cylinder, and work your way closer. So pass ride rear, driver side rear, pass side front, driver side front.[/B]
Colin, this is how I bleed my system too, but I remeber reading in the Helms manual, it says to bleed in the following order:
RR, LF, LR, RF
I could be wrong though. Can someone confirm?
Originally posted by SE-37K
[B]Colin, this is how I bleed my system too, but I remeber reading in the Helms manual, it says to bleed in the following order:
RR, LF, LR, RF
I could be wrong though. Can someone confirm? [/B]
That is correct. I’m trying to upload a pic but my host is down 
edit: Server’s back up!
Originally posted by 90RioGS
[B]That is correct. I’m trying to upload a pic but my host is down
edit: Server’s back up!
[/B]
interesting… i’d trust the helms. I’m just going off what my dad told me. He’s done a good deal of racing so i trust him…but who knows, the helms is SPECIFIC for our cars, so its probably right.
changing brake fluid
if you don’t need to bleed the brakes, but want to change the fluid, how do you know how much fluid to go through? I would think until the fluid looks pretty clean, but that’s not very scientific.
Re: changing brake fluid
Originally posted by jmw416
if you don’t need to bleed the brakes, but want to change the fluid, how do you know how much fluid to go through? I would think until the fluid looks pretty clean, but that’s not very scientific.
you can’t really replace the fluid w/o bleeding the brakes. If you drain the fluid out, then you’ll have air in the system and will thus need to bleed the brakes…
Re: Re: changing brake fluid
Originally posted by 91IntegGS
you can’t really replace the fluid w/o bleeding the brakes. If you drain the fluid out, then you’ll have air in the system and will thus need to bleed the brakes…
I understand you need to bleed the brakes to change the fluid. I’m asking how do I know when to stop? How much fluid do I need to go through before all the old fluid it out?
Did you even read my question and think about what I’m asking? Did you actually think I thought I could just let the fluid drain out, refill it and not need to bleed the brakes?
Use ATE Blue Stuff Fluid. Then you’ll know when all the old shit has been bled out of the system, cause it’s blue. ATE is damn good fluid, but a bit hard to find.
Re: Re: Re: changing brake fluid
Originally posted by jmw416
[B]I understand you need to bleed the brakes to change the fluid. I’m asking how do I know when to stop? How much fluid do I need to go through before all the old fluid it out?
Did you even read my question and think about what I’m asking? Did you actually think I thought I could just let the fluid drain out, refill it and not need to bleed the brakes? [/B]
calm down buddy. yes, i did think that you meant that…sorry for underestimating your intelligence…but we get a lot people passing through who ask VERY simple questions that are common sense…so sorry if i offended you, but seriously, don’t take it personally.
i would remove the calipers and flush them out. I know mine had a lot of crap in them that didn’t come out just by bleeding them. But yes, you can just add it till its clear, thats better than nothing. It really depends on how much time you want to take. If you want you can just bleed the brakes like normal…but do it for a longer period of time so you flush out the old and get the new in. Or you can drain all the fluid out and start fresh. The system doesn’t take all that much fluid. Just go buy a large bottle of fluid (its not very expensive) and you’ll have more than enough, but a small bottle won’t be enough to do the whole job.
I’m calm, I understand a lot of people on here have no clue, but you gotta give people some credit.
Originally posted by 91IntegGS
interesting… i’d trust the helms. I’m just going off what my dad told me. He’s done a good deal of racing so i trust him…but who knows, the helms is SPECIFIC for our cars, so its probably right.
The Haynes manual says the reason for this is that these are the wheels that are paired on the distribution block thing on the right fender. The order of which pair to do first is probably determined by the order the lines are on the master cylinder.
Digging this up:
Should the key be in the ON position when pumping the pedal while you bleed? Also, once the pedal has been pumped, held down, and the bleeder closed… after the person in the car lets of the pedal when the bleeder is closed, should they pump the pedal to re-build the pressure before opening the bolt and pressing again? Once last thing… If you are completely replacing the fluid… You start on the first wheel, once the fluid level in the resovoir gets low, you top it off with the new stuff. Now do you keep bleeding at that caliper (could be in excess of 20 pumps right?) until you see the new, clean fluid and then move onto the next caliper and repeat OR do you do a few pumps on the first caliper, move to the next and just keep going around the calipers until you see new fluid at each? Kind of a run on, but you get me, or need clarification?