Cant Bleed Brakes

[brownie 25]

hi all

had the callipers of the car,i have bled the brakes a dosen times there dosent seem to be any air in them but the peddel still goes to the floor when i push it slow,if i pump it it gets a bit heavy.

any ideas whats wrong

[Rob]

when u finish bleeding the caliper do u keep the pedal pressed and get a mate to tighten the nipple or do you rlease the pedal?

[brownie 25]

yes held the pedal down and closed the nipple,also put a clear pipe onto the nipple and the other end into a bottle of brake fluid and bleed it that way,there is no air at the calipers.

i opend the nipple on the alumnum box longside the master cyclinder,i think its the abs unit but nothing comes out of there,should brake fluid come from there.

is there anything else that needs to be bld.i also put on a new master cyclinder.

[MacRS200]

Have you tried the pedal with the ignition on or the engine running?

[Norv]

Don't touch the ABS unit again. Once you get air in there its a nightmare to bleed out!

Are you bleeding the brakes by opening the blled nipple as someone else pushes the pedal down then closing it before they bring the pedal back up, repeat about 15 times? After every 5th pump of the pedal keep the nipple closed while they pump the pedal a few times and hold it down, then open the nipple.

If you are really struggling you can try back bleeding it with a little oil can full of fluid and put that on the bleed nipple, obviously the fluid level will go up so make sure you can catch any overflow, sometimes this can help if the system is being stubborn.

Failing that you will need a pressure bleeder, you can get some which use the air pressure of a tyre to push the fluid through, or some are Battery powered and keep the fluid going through at a constant pressure.

Hope this helps, Mark.

[brownie 25]

i got this sorted tonite,

thanks for the replys everyone,i bled the brakes so many differant ways one of them had to be the right way lol.

after a lot of just staring into space i decided to pull the callipers off again,and low and behold they were SIEZED so a bit of freeing out and a bit of lube

the problem's solved.

i had thought of this yesterday but i thought if the calliper was seized the pedal whould be solid obviously not, so where was the fluid going?

[Rob]

if you have opened the nipple from the abs unit then u have air in there - you need to have the system pressure bled now.

[TigerFish]

i had thought of this yesterday but i thought if the calliper was seized the pedal whould be solid obviously not, so where was the fluid going?

It should still be solid. A seized caliper shouldn't make any difference to bleeding, as the pistons are essentially redundant when the bleed nipple is open and the fluid is coming straight out. I suspect the extra bit of work on the calipers, and presumably bleeding them again, just cleared the air pocket.

[brownie 25]

if you have opened the nipple from the abs unit then u have air in there - you need to have the system pressure bled now.

the brakes seem to be working ok now,when i opened the nipple no air or fluid came out,could you explain how to pressure bled the abs system.i have the one man bleder the one that conects to the reseviour and a spare tyre.would i be able to use this

[Rob]

u need a machine which pumps fluid in under pressure - or an adaptor that has an air pump to pressurise the reservoir thus forcing the fluid out. go to a garage and get it done.

[brownie 25]

u need a machine which pumps fluid in under pressure - or an adaptor that has an air pump to pressurise the reservoir thus forcing the fluid out. go to a garage and get it done.

that is what the bleder i have does,but when i used it it just built up pressure in the resaviour and the fluid came out the top with all nippels open,from what i can see there is no air left in the system

[TigerFish]

u need a machine which pumps fluid in under pressure - or an adaptor that has an air pump to pressurise the reservoir thus forcing the fluid out. go to a garage and get it done.

that is what the bleder i have does,but when i used it it just built up pressure in the resaviour and the fluid came out the top with all nippels open,from what i can see there is no air left in the system

If the fluid came out of the top of the resevoir, then the seal on the cap on the top of the resevoir was not air tight.

On a side note, when I used to use one of those kits, it did used to fill the fluid up to the brim in the resevoir (above max), so i did add a short length of tube on the inside of the cap so that it stopped adding the fluid at the right level.