brake system pressure bleeder

[scubaasteve]

Any leads on an effective system for pressure bleeding? I have searched the forum and I didn't find anything.

I have a standard single circuit system with drum brakes.

[Frank Irons]

I usually have the wife pump up the pedal and then hold it down while I work the bleeders on the wheel cylinders. She is pretty good at it and it works well. Getting a wife may be more expensive than buying a pressure bleeder, but there are other benefits to be had.

Frank

[scubaasteve]

yeah,,,the first round of bleeding went quick enough with this helper or that. for the single chaps out there wouldn't that be a great first or 2nd date?

[scubaasteve]

of course i started to ask if your wife was available next weekend but when i saw your last sentence...,left it alone!

[Frank Irons]

Steve,

I have also used a vacuum bleeder when my assistant was not available. You may want to look at the Mitey Vac. It is a simple hand operated vacuum pump that you can bleed brakes with using vacuum vs pressure. Use the pump to draw a vacuum at the wheel cylinder and draw the brake fluid through till there are no air bubbles. I think mine was about $39.00. The pump can also be used to siphon fluids and a bunch of other things.

Frank

[Kaiser2boy]

If you contact Vintage Powerwagon parts and explaine what you want there is a guy there that will email you the instructions on how to make your own out of a bug sprayer from WalMart.
What I did with mine was to get a 6 inch section of one inch threaded pipe and screw it into the fill plug then screw on the biggest addapter to the biggest diameter pipe I could . This gave me about a quart of reserve fluid. I capped the make shift resivouir with a iron cap with a small hole in it and epoxyed a plastic hose in it and hooked it to a small air compressor and set it to 2 or 3 pounds. It worked.
If you do use the helper to pump the pedal remember DO NOT PUMP FAST, GO SLOW fast pumpimg just makes millions of bubbles all through the system.

[Charles Talbert]

We have a really good Branick pressure bleeder at the shop. The ones that have been around for years. It's fool proof everytime, once you learn exactly how to work all the attachments. It's the best I know of for an air free system.

Pedal pumping will work also, many times you can't get every bit of air out that way, however with the standard brake system, the little air that is left will find its way back to the reservoir in a short while where it will vent.

[oldmopar]

Here is a link to building your own bleeder its easy I have one it works well. The only hard part to find is a cap for the top of the mc but if you have a old mc the end cap where lines exit should fit in the plug just need a nipple and plug.

http://www.bmw-m.net/TechProc/bleeder.htm

[Gordon Maney]

Pressure bleeders have advantages and disadvantages. An advantage is that no helper is required, and also that they fill the reservoir as you go. The disadvantage is that the flow rate is low and won't always wipe the air bubbles out of places they are sticking.

There are some vehicles you simply can't do with a pressure bleeder. Best examples are school buses. The lines are so long, and there is so much volume in the circuit, that it is hard to get enough motion in the fluid when you are compressing air [stuck here and there as bubbles] over such a great length of line

The answer with those is to first turn all the adjusters out so there is no shoe movement and all master cylinder movement is directed to bleeding and not wheel cylinder movement. You can get much higher pressures with a person pumping the pedal. When the bleeder valve is opened you want to be sure to open it as far as possible — as quickly as possible. This will yield the best burst of velocity, or flow rate.