Need advice: bleeding brakes

Well, my cars been up on jack stands for 4 weeks. I've got new pads, rotors resurfaced and new SS brake lines. Part of the time was waiting for parts, part was me pouring 200 ft of curbing in yard, part was work, but the past week has been due to a spongy brake pedal.

Dang, I've bled and bled and bled all over my garage. Here is where I am at.

Car on and the power steering pump makes some noise as I depress the pedal. I don't think it is abnormal but I don't remember it making noise before. I hold for about 30 seconds while the pedal is near the floor. I'm doing this to pressurize the system and look/feel for leaks. So far no leaks found.

Car off and and it takes seven pumps to build pressure until the pedal is firm.

Here is what I think: If it is air in the system it should act like it is acting, if it were a leak the pedal could/would be firm but slowly go to the floor and I should see some fluid at one of the connections.

The only two abnormal things that happened during the brake line change was the pass side flare nut was a bit hard to turn when putting it back together. I started by hand 5 times and each time was the same. In the end I put teflon tape on it and put it back together. Maybe it was cross threaded from the factory? Dunno. The other was I was going to put speed bleeders on so I removed the right front beeder. The speed bleeder Summit sent me was the wrong size, way too small, so I put the stock bleeder back in.

Other than those two things everything was normal. I bleed the old fashion way, with the Mrs. on the pedal on me on the wrench and tending the reservoir.

Any advice from somebody on other things to try would be great. I have read almost everything I can find everywhere and I am close to buying a pressure bleeder but I have heard from many that the old fashion way is the best.

Getting air out of the break lines is a long aggravating process without taking it to someone that can open up the valves out of the ABS module. If you are going to do it on your own, get a vacuum pump and a few 1 gallon jugs of break fluid and go to town. Then drive it and try to get the abs to come on, and then go bleed them again, then go drive it and activate the abs module, and then go bleed them again. Just keep doing it over and over and over again until you think you have all of the air out. Good luck.

bleed the master cylinder.

flare fittings dont get thread sealant. replace the line you cross threaded. if its not leaking now, it will soon anyway.

ditto on the teflon tape on the brake fitting. it will eventually break down or not hold up under pressure so remove that. i had a similar issue when i painted my calipers. the rear SS brake line would not seal no matter what i did. soon after i reinstalled the stock rubber rear line, the leak went away. because i wasnt so motivated to cut and reflare the line i just kept it that way. the 2nd issue arose with the spongy pedal. no matter how many times i bled the system i kept having the spongy pedal. it turns out i had air in the mc so after bleeding from the 2 bleed valves the firm pedal came back. i recommedn those pressure bleeders that bleed via your mc so there is no need to pedal bleed. it makes things awhole lot easy and its a one man job.

Speed bleeders will make the job easier.

I bled the master cylinder; no improvement. I tightened everything up again and re-checked for leaks. Found 3 of the four bleeders seeping a little.

I'll re bleed everything again tomorrow and see what happens.

Frustration is setting in...

Damn, I've bled for two additional nights. I am getting air out but is it typical to get almost a faint bubbly mist out of the lines? Apparently I have not bled enough brake lines in my life as I do not know what to expect. Anyway, I am curious if this is normal when replacing brake lines or if some how or some where I am sucking in some air. The reservoir is always full and nothing is leaking that I can detect.

How do they bleed lines at the factory? I'm guessing they vac the air out of the lines and then pressure bleed them.

I just ordered a Motive pressure bleeder because the Mrs. says this is stupid and she is done helping.

are u getting leaks anywhere? Did you bleed both ports on the MC? no matter how much i bled the lines the spongy pedal didnt go away until i bled the MC and also got rid of the leaking flare fitting. once u go with the pressure bleeder, ull never go back to pedal bleeding again.

What I did.....

I removed my calipers to be powdercoated. After a week all the fluid drained out of the Master Cylinder. I bled the brakes for days. I then bled the two two points at the master cylinder. My brake feel was the best it has ever been. Thanks too the SS brake lines and no air of course!! I used a one way check valve to bleed everything..no friends!

venomous99 said:

are u getting leaks anywhere? Did you bleed both ports on the MC? no matter how much i bled the lines the spongy pedal didnt go away until i bled the MC and also got rid of the leaking flare fitting. once u go with the pressure bleeder, ull never go back to pedal bleeding again.

Click to expand...

You got a link to this pressure bleeder deal?

+1 yeah, maybe some pics of where to bleed the MC?

02reaper said:

You got a link to this pressure bleeder deal?

Click to expand...

Here is what I ordered.

If you have an '05 or later you need the 0108.

Holy Crap. This has to be the most tedious and antogonizing thing I have ever done. After many other problems, including one of of the front bleeders rounding out on me, I've been through at least 800 oz of break fluid and I still am getting a huge number of bubbles out of the rear calipers. After two days of bleeding it seems that the number of bubbles is the same tonight as it was yesterday morning. Does this seem right?

This is driving me crazy!!!!

I recieved and I am using the motive pressure bleeder. The brake system is under pressure. There are no leaks. Any leaks under pressure would be in the form of fluid leaks, not air being sucked in somewhere.

I have bled the master cylinder a few times. At first I would get some air out but not any more.

I am acutally in the mode of recycling fluid becasue I can't justify the cost of new fluid just to get air bubbles out and throw it away. I've checked the line between the motive bleeder and the master cyclinder and it is completely bubble free. After the system is air free, if it ever happens, I'll go back with new fluid and bleed it through.

Any advice is appreciated.

Please buy speed bleeders like I told you in post #5 and be done with it.

this thread is so full of FAIL it makes baby jesus cry.

ShelbyGuy said:

this thread is so full of FAIL it makes baby jesus cry.

Click to expand...

Is this you trying to be helpful?

For the archives, If anyone actually use the search function and stumbles upon this thread.

I'm finally done. The brakes are good. I recommend getting the Motive power bleeder. It is a little bit of a hassle but it does make it a one person job. I would not recommend the speed bleeders due to a high failure rate of these little devices. Maybe they are better now but I've read and talked to many that have had both good luck and failures. The failures are what cause me to stay away from them.

I also discovered my main problem. The rear calipers have a trapped pocket of air that requires the bleeder screw to be in a fairly specific location to force the air out. On my car I loosened the bleeder screws about 1/6" of a turn and gently tapped on the bleeder screw. While tapping, rotate the bleeder screw a little more closed to a littel more open and find the air pockets. After that everything was well. I did a final bleed on the master cylinder and and emptied the power bleeder and eveything was back to normal.

Great news! :beer:

the motive pressure bleeder is the best. it actually takes longer to jack the car up than doing the actual bleeding. for 70 buck or whatever it is, its well worth the money.