Paprika

Hey, I need an accurate answer for this question and the more replies backing one answer the better.

I need to try and bleed my brakes again, I recently opened my eyes to the idea of using a vaccume pump to bleed them alone.

I went out looking today for a pump, the best price I found was for a MightyVac for $25 @ Autozone.. aparently it's on sale and what they did have isn't there anymore.. they've got like 3 left. Should I get it? Compaired to...

As I was looking, after I left Sears and their $50 Vac. Pump (rediculous price) I went to pepboys and though their $40 Vac. Pumps were out of stock, they did have a "brake bleeder hose" Which claimes to be able to let a person bleed their brakes alone, without needing the assistance of anther person. I don't know how it could do that but maybe it have a one way valve in the metal adapter on the end of the hose.. but the instructions on the back of it were striaght forward and simple... too simple. Down right didn't like them.. now that I think about it they're making the same claim a kit I got from a discount hardware store did, and it didn't do anything but break on me. This kit in question from pepboys is "Performance Tool Brake Bleeder Hose W170C" for $3.99. Thats what stopped me from buying the MightyVac... do I really need it?

Doing the Two Man method didn't work for me.... maybe I didn't do it good enough. But being able to really do it alone would benifit me alot because I don't have someone totally reliable to call upon to help me so...

Should I go ahead and get the Mighty Vac or what? I already had pepboys bleed the brakes and they still are no good... **** I'd hate to have to replace the caliper or the drums but there isn't any other economical way for me to find out what needs to be done than to try bleeding the brakes again, this time doing ALL four wheels, and with a vaccume pump.

I have more posts about my brake problem here on this board and two other honda communities, if you want more information on it PM me and I'll be glad to provide you w/ the links.

Paprika

BUMP

Average Al

get speed bleeders

Paprika

mmmmmmmm I could but that would be another charge to my mom's credit card that I don't nessesarily want to add. I don't want to wait for them to recieve a money order and my paypal is empty...

Paprika

wow still no replies yet... isn't there a place I can go where I know I will get help?

EE_Chris

Tell us how you're bleeding them? Maybe we can point to what you may be doing wrong.

The order I follow is:

Passenger Rear
Driver Front
Driver Rear
Passenger Front

Pump the brake pedal a few times and HOLD IT. Have 2nd person break open the bleeder screw. When brake pedal hits floor, 2nd person NEEDS to retighten the bleeder screw before you pull the brake pedal up. Repeat this till clear fluid comes out (and no air bubbles).

Speed Bleeders work too - def a one man operation there. Just crack'em, pump, pump, pump, retighten. They have a check ball that prevents air getting pulled past it when you bring the brake pedal back up off the floor. Only issue here is keeping an eye of the brake fluid resovoir - so keep it topped off.

Dan GSR

in my experience, the vacuums are horrible at bleeding

two person method has gotten the best results for me

klungemonger

I just picked up the Mighty Vac last week at AutoZone. It works alright, not the best but it did the job. I got it for $26 it's not on sale that's just the regular price. Make sure when you use it you keep putting fluid in the reservoir, if it goes dry you'll have air inthe lines again and have to start over.

f1z1c

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Dan GSR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">in my experience, the vacuums are horrible at bleeding

two person method has gotten the best results for me</TD></TR></TABLE>
Thats true, I agree, me2, etc. I disallow the mechs at work to bleed brakes 1 man style. Its always one guy letting the bleed out, and one guy has to pump the brakes like mad and then hold it down. Then we recheck the cylinder after each line is bled.
Then on start up, we pump again and the brakes should work normally right from there.

Frozen E

I don't remember where the hell I got them but I got myself a set (4) bleeders that replace the stock ones. You can open them up and the fluid can only go OUT, nothing back in. They have built in check valves. I hooked some 1/4" fish tank air tubing up to the rears and ran both of those into a bucket. I cracked them open after filling the resevoir and pumped a few times, topped the resevoir off, pumped again, fill resevoir....etc. Did that about 10 times. It's easier if you can get somebody to top the resevoir off for you while you pump (duuuuhhh). Anyway, I did the same on the fronts. No sweat. The bleeders are still on the car so if I ever need to bleed them again it's really easy.

OR another thing you could do (if you don't have check valve bleeders) is to hook some of that 1/4" tubing up to the bleeder and run it into a bucket that has about 1" of new brake fluid in the bottom of it. Just enough so the hose isn't sucking up air but fluid. Then crack the bleeder and do the same thing as I described earlier. You'll push out more fluid that you'd suck in so you're still bleeding the lines. Any air that gets pushed out isn't going to sit there hangin around in the fluid in the bucket, so if you do suck some back in you're getting nothing but brake fluid.

Hope that helped a bit.

Paprika

Ok. I called Advanced Auto Parts, they sell them (the speedbleeders) but they'd need to order them and it would take like 3-days for them to come in. So I was like... "umm ok, I'll get back to you"

Took the car to Monroe Muffler & Brake this morning, they inspected it and found the driverside rear brake drum cylinder was leaking... thats the only problem they found. I basically told them the same thing - "ummm ok, i'll get back to you" They estimated $110 total to do the repair (Replace, flush, bleed). Within that charge was like either $30 or $40 for the cylinder it'self which I found out can be had for $15 from napa, and less elsewhere.

If I could do the repair myself I would but I don't have experiance with drum brakes, I've only worked w/ my calipers upfront.
What do you think I should do? I do have a PDF copy of the service manual I can refer to and print pages from.

The sooner the response, the sooner I can act. Time is valuable.

EE_Chris

I think, that if you have the .pdf, and have read it, and after reading are still unsure if you could complete the job satisfactorly, I'd take it to a shop.

I mean, its just 'parts' that are 'put together' - so if you have a Helms and the proper tools suggested, give it a whirl.

I do believe that HondaTuning.com (the magazine) has an article on their site detailing the servicing of rear drum brakes - nice pics and step-by-step - may be give that a once-over.

Paprika

hmm.. Thanks for the tips mate. I appreciate it.

Average Al

also just look at the other side when ur having trouble reinstalling

drum brakes are pretty ez and replacing the cylinder should be a breeze just bust out the manual ( could be whatever helms,haynes)

93CivicSI

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Dan GSR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">in my experience, the vacuums are horrible at bleeding

two person method has gotten the best results for me</TD></TR></TABLE>


The person that is doing the actuall bleeding has to close off the bleeders before the brake pedal hits the floor in the car....

Paprika

i got that brake cylinder in and all that fancy stuff, atleast my brakes still /work/ they're not really any better though. My damn passenger side drum wouldn't cooperate so I didn't get to check it myself though it was removed just earlier that day at Monroe.

Still where I started, I even bleed that line hooked to the cylinder I replaced because of cource I knew air go into that line and I seen it come back out as me and my sister bleed it in this manner:

She pumps 3-5 times and holds.
I open the valve, fluid comes rushing out and after a few seconds I close it.
Check Master Cylinder Fluid level every 3-5 times.
Above Repeated like 12x over until I didn't see any more large scale air bubles... let alone any at all if I remember correctly.

I even put the parking brake on a few times to get the self-adjusting screw and the hole gang a workout and drove around the block. Still feels as if nothing has been changed. WTF.

The bleeder screw provided with it is cheap too.

MasterKwan

I have the vacuum.

When I'd bleed the brakes, you'd see air-bubbles which I knew weren't in the brake cylinders. The vacuum was sucking air past the threads of the bleeder screw. What I ended up doing was remove each bleeder, put a wrap of teflon tape on the threads then scew them back in. Now when I do the one man vacuum bleeding, I don't get any air (other than that in the system) in the bleed hose.

Paprika

Sounds nice, could you elighten me more as to how bleeding the brakes with a hand-pump went for you?

What exact process did you follow?

Paprika

Bumps?

meccA's eg6

instead of worrying of keeping the fluid topped off why do you just stick the whole bottle in there upside down...so when the level drops it just fills it up....just a trick i learned in autoshop, it makes it way eaiser.

and we had an air comprerrsor machine that sucked the fuild out, it worked really good, but it was strong so i dont know how that 26 dollar one will do compared to that.

MasterKwan

There's really nothing to it.

I have a pump, a catch bottle and some hose. The catch bottle has two hose fittings, one goes to the top of the bottle, the other to a hose that runs to the bottom of the bottle. Connect the vacuum source to the upper fitting, connect the lower fitting to the hose that goes to the bleeder. Open the bleeder a turn or so, and pump up some vacuum. Typically I have 20 psi on it. When fluid flows, the bottle starts to fill. I normally pump till the bottle is full, then close the bleeder and check/top off the master cylinder.

Catch bottle and pump came from Sears. Do the brakes in the order recommended in the manual.

civicboisi

i've always wonder why people try to find the easiest way to do things to their cars when they shouldve just done it right the first way and most likely only way to do it and do it right?!

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by EE_Chris &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Tell us how you're bleeding them? Maybe we can point to what you may be doing wrong.

The order I follow is:

Passenger Rear
Driver Front
Driver Rear
Passenger Front

Pump the brake pedal a few times and HOLD IT. Have 2nd person break open the bleeder screw. When brake pedal hits floor, 2nd person NEEDS to retighten the bleeder screw before you pull the brake pedal up. Repeat this till clear fluid comes out (and no air bubbles).

Speed Bleeders work too - def a one man operation there. Just crack'em, pump, pump, pump, retighten. They have a check ball that prevents air getting pulled past it when you bring the brake pedal back up off the floor. Only issue here is keeping an eye of the brake fluid resovoir - so keep it topped off.</TD></TR></TABLE>

^^^ ^^^ that's all you need to do!

That pumps not gonna help you for **** insted rip you out of 26 bucks.

tcr03

i always thought it was

passenger rear
drivers rear
passenger front
drivers front.

Paprika

The pump makes it a one man job, doesn't it?

It's also easier, no?

Can't always find someone to be your pedal man, especially me.


But damnit you guys speak of it being so easy but yet I still have this problem. My main issue with it is that I need to remove the wheel to access the bleeder screw.. watch the next reply be something to the effect: "I don't have to remove my wheels, all I do is put the tube on the bleeder screw and be on my marry way"
:rollseyes: where is the rolls eyes smilie when you need it?

I feel so incompetent.

Hey, lety say jim bob installs a new Master Cylinder but doesn't bleed the air out of it before installing it. When he goes to bleed the entire brake system from wheel to wheel, will that remove the air that may be in the Master Cylinder Also?

civicboisi

When you bleed your brakes...it removes ANY air in your system...and yes it is an easy task. Just read what we are saying and do it.