Brake fluid change

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Jimothy
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Brake fluid change

Post by Jimothy »

Hi there,

want to bleed the brakes and renew the fluid soon but have two questions:

1 - has anyone tried using this pressure-bleed kit ? If so, is it any good? Failing that, I'll just pick up one of those one-way valve jobbies.


2 - my haynes manual doesn't give a capacity for the brake fluid, so not sure how much to purchase in advance. It's a Berlingo van (2000, no ABS) so if anyone knows the right capacity that's be great.

Failing that can someone give me a ballpark figure for a typical hydraulic system (are we talking about 2 litres, 5 or nearer 10, say?)

cheers, Jim
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Post by myglaren »

Can't help you there but perhaps someone on the Berlingo Forum might?
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Post by HDI »

Have had one of those pressure bleed units, never liked it. It was messy and the air source is from a tyre, it all gets a bit awkward and difficult to avoid spills etc.
The best thing I've ever used for brake bleeding apart from a professional unit is the Mityvac vacuum bleeder. It's just attached to each caliper in turn via the bleed nipple and is just hand pumped to draw fluid through by vacuum. You just have to keep topping up the fluid reservoir after each caliper.
You will need no more than a Ltr of fluid to give it a good flushing.

Little tip, when the last caliper is reached, with the nipple open and before attaching the Mityvac, slowly push the brake pedal to the floor a few times, closing the nipple on the back stroke, to purge the master cylinder, venting the fluid into a container. Then carry on with the Mityvac as before.
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Post by JohnD »

Capacity of the system is .6 of a ltr. I've changed brake fluid on all four of my cars and have managed very well with a standard bleed tube with a valve on the end of it.
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Post by Jimothy »

JohnD wrote:Capacity of the system is .6 of a ltr. I've changed brake fluid on all four of my cars and have managed very well with a standard bleed tube with a valve on the end of it.
Thanks very much, John - much smaller than I anticipated - as I've already bought 2 litres of fluid that leaves me plenty spare to flush the system through with! :oops:
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Post by Chlorate »

You can make a rather effective brake bleeding kit with a length of vac hose, a screw and a pop bottle :D
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Post by Old-Guy »

Chlorate wrote:You can make a rather effective brake bleeding kit with a length of vac hose, a screw and a pop bottle :D
Lurking in the depths of my toolbox is a very similar 'patent' device. The differences being that the pipe is neoprene (still good after more than 30 years) of an internal bore that fits every bleed nipple that I've ever come across, instead of a screw it has a short ring-barbed nail to block the blind end, and it has a lengthways cut (about ½" long just short of the nail) to act as a valve.

It has 2 drawbacks:
not long enough to reach the ground
not clear so you can't see the state of the fluid being bled now (as opposed to all the crap in the container!) and you can't see air bubbles.
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Post by quintet »

This may not apply to your van as i can't recall off-hand the reservoir design on the early vans but if it has the square/flat/shallow style reservoir then after you've topped it up ensure all the air is expelled from 'said' reservoir by tilting it backwards & look for the air bubbles to escape, obviously don't go mad tilting it back as you don't wanna risk drawing air in at the master cylinder or crack the plastic outlets. The flat/square/shallow reservoirs can be a pain in the a**e to top up as they trap air very easily! i 'think' your van maybe ok, i think they had a more regular reservoir on the early ones :?
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Post by uncle buck »

HDI wrote:Little tip, when the last caliper is reached, with the nipple open and before attaching the Mityvac, slowly push the brake pedal to the floor a few times, closing the nipple on the back stroke, to purge the master cylinder, venting the fluid into a container. Then carry on with the Mityvac as before.
I wouldn't ever advise pushing the brake peddle to the floor when bleeding brakes for the simple reason:

Under normal use the brake peddle only moves a short way so the rubber seals on master cylinder piston only normally ever use part of the master cylinder wall, the part of the wall that isn't normally used will have some corrosion on it unless it's brand new, if you start pushing the seals over the corroded surface it will damage the seals & then they will let fluid by, this will show up as a sinking peddle when pressure is applied.

If you are going to bleed the brakes with the peddle make sure to only push it about as far as it travels in everyday use. This method should also be used after fitting new brake pads also.

I would advise either a pressure bleeder or a vacuum bleeder for renewing the fluid.


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Post by HDI »

All I can say is I've never had a problem and it is the only way of fully purging old fluid from the master cylinder.
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Post by uncle buck »

Yes you will get away with it a lot of the time, but prevention is better than cure in this case, as when it does go wrong you have a much bigger & expensive job on your hands :cry:

I've seen it happen quite a few times, even when the peddle has only been pumped to the floor a couple of times to push the calliper pistons back out after a pad change. (best to use a lot of short movements of the peddle for this)
The master cylinder can also fail after the caliper pistons have been pushed back as this causes the fluid to go through the master cylinder the wrong way, ideally the bleed nipple on the calliper should be opened & the flexi hose clamped so that the fluid is pushed out of the system & not back into it.

You can still use the peddle to purge the old fluid but only move it as far as it normally goes.
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Post by Jimothy »

Thanks all, you've given me plenty to think about - will report back on the final method used and my level of success once I've had time to do it.

cheers,
Jim
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Post by ralph »

The Gunson Eezibleed works for me.
I've had one for about five years and used it on several cars. It works well.
My tip: have a roll of plumber's PFTE tape. You may need to wrap it around the thread of your brake fluid reservoir to stop the air pressure escaping.
And watch out for spills - brake fluid strips paint very quickly.
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