Brake bleeding process

[speedlever]

I was trying to see what I was misunderstanding about henni's suggestion.

I've done the brakes multiple times, but with the vacuum source, I've always gotten more air leakage around the threads than I would like. If I tighten the screw to minimize the leak, I also reduce the flow of brake fluid. I'm comfy that I have a good seal on the tube connecting to the bleeder screw. I've not found a happy spot with the vacuum method.

OTOH, the pressure method works great, but the device I used sucked (pun intended) when sealing the cap over the fluid reservoir. The universal cap simply would not seal and hold a positive psi without leaking.

Of course these are all solo methods. Next time I may draft one of the kids (if they're around) when I do a brake fluid change and just use the two-person method.

[groupset]

Sounds like you're unscrewing the bleeder valve just a little too much, speed. There's a happy medium between opening the valve enough to pull out the old fluid and opening it too much to the point the vacuum is lost via air escaping from the threads. I've never had a problem with this using the pneumatic bleeder.

[speedlever]

You may be right. But too little on the bleeder screw and not much happens. There must be a very fine line between too little and too much turn of the bleeder screw.

My best results were with the Motive Power Bleeder except for that pressurization leak. If they could make a cap for Honda's reservoir, that would work much better than the universal cap they send.

[groupset]

The pneumatic bleeder will tolerate some loss of vacuum at the bleeder screw threads and still operate with enough efficiency to pull the old fluid out. I set my air compressor on about 90 psi when using the pneumatic bleeder and have gone higher than that on some vehicles. I can feel air escaping from around the bleeder screw threads at times, but it still has sufficient vacuum pressure to overcome that leaking and pull the old fluid out. Since it's under vacuum, there's no danger of introducing air back into the system, either.

[speedlever]

Agreed. Using the Mityvac for a vacuum source for brake fluid exchange was more tedious than I anticipated.

I NEED to get an air compressor.

[laserguy]

Funny but I bleed my Ford SUV Ford, I had help although never thought we had good timing as far as closing the valve. The brakes have never been as tight as they are now, I still need to do it again to completely renew the fluid since I just barely top it off and I did not even follow an order per line on it.