Brake fluid

pgarner

TC ModFather
Points
417
Location
Lockerbie, SW Scotland
Car
Octy smoke machine
How many of you have changed your own brake fluid ?
which method did you use ? 2man or 1man kit.

brakes are starting to get very spongy, had to pump pedal a few times to get a decent feel on them. although the car is due a service in around 900 miles i was thinking about doing it myself as was a bit worried to begin with.
 
the last time i changed brake fluid was on my astra gsi so a good year and half ago easy when i upgraded the pads and discs from 256mm to 288mm
and i used a 1 man kit the easy bleed 1 where you use the pressure from the spare tyre this makes it quite simple
but beware if using a haynes manual cause it told me to bleed the system as if it wasnt an abs system e.g front left rear right but to be told by my mate this was wrong an abs system has to be bleed rear 2 first then the front 2 (could be the other way round cant remember) but easy in reality if you know the bleed sequence
 
yeah have read up on this lately
haynes say to do the fronts 1st, however this is only to be done on the 4wd varients (which funny enough the book doesnt cover).
most sites show to do the rear passenger, rear driver, front passenger and front driver last, basically working from furthest from the master cylinder to closest. might give it a try. if i mess it up itll get done in the service which wont be long
 
At bolt up build time the manufacturers use a system not unlike a milking machine. Attach vauum hoses to all the bleed screws and draw brake fluid from the master directly.
 
yeah the 1 man kits work in the opposite way.
spare wheel line goes to bottle of fluid
line out of bottle goes to resivior cap
and open the bleed screws
the comprssed air in the wheel pushes the fluid through the cylinder and out the nipples.

have heard about garages doing it in reverse. bascally bottle is connected to nipple and fluid drawn back through the cylinder anybody know anything about this ?
 
yeah the 1 man kits work in the opposite way.
spare wheel line goes to bottle of fluid
line out of bottle goes to resivior cap
and open the bleed screws
the comprssed air in the wheel pushes the fluid through the cylinder and out the nipples.

have heard about garages doing it in reverse. bascally bottle is connected to nipple and fluid drawn back through the cylinder anybody know anything about this ?

I use a jar. With 1 pipe going to the nipple and someone pumping the brake...:D
 
I think that the vacuum process is probably more reliable than the two man pedal pushing one

It's always served me well. I'm a bit old fashioned though me. If you ain't got the tool to do the job then find something else that will do it. Thats me. I would presume the vacuum method is better. But i've always done it with a jar an someone pumping. Maybe i'l change next time..:D
 
I use what I call a vacuum bleeder, uses compressed air flowing past a venturi to draw the brake fluid from the nipples. But I like to finish off with 2 person method after using it as the vacuum bleeder only draws the fluid through slowly so I finish off with 2 people so I get a nice fast flow of fluid to make sure every wheel is getting a good supply of fluid. Just out of interest I changed the fluid/bled the brakes on our 2005 Prius a few weeks ago. Now that was interesting, after bleeding the brakes I had 3 brake warning lights illuminated on the dash. To clear them I had to bridge two terminals on the brake diagnostic plug, switch the power button on and then pump the brakes 8 times within 5 seconds.
 
That's probably because the Prius also uses regenerative braking. This must interface with the hydraulic system to determine the ratio of traditional:electric braking.
 
The Prius brake system also uses an electric pump to pressurise an accumulator to store fluid under pressure as it does not use vacuum boosted brakes as engine is not always running. Also electric power steering.
 
Personally I'm not a fan of electric PAS when the assistance is applied to the steering column rather than to the rack. But I can see the efficiency benefits over running an electrically driven pump to drive a traditional hydraulic system.
 

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