When flushing my brakes yesterday we noticed the bleed screws on both rear brakes appear to be leaking. The leak is incredibly small. By pushing hard on the brake pedal the they will leak about 1 drop every 10-15 seconds. I've got about 15k miles on the car and last flushed the brakes at Expo'02 with ATE blue stuff.

Any ideas what could have caused this? Over or under tightening? Yesterday I actually tightened to 6.5lbs using the torque wrench just to be sure. Maybe this a good time to upgrade to speed bleeders?

 

hahaha...speedbleeders ...better not put any ft lbs on that thing

 

take them out and clean the threads and put them back in. or buy new ones.

run away from speedbleeders....

 

Speed bleeders,,, I'd rather do it the old fashoin way and have less worries.

 

I also noticed a small drip from both of my rear bleed screws when I bled them at Expo. They leaked a couple drops, but nothing major. When I was done, I torqued them down pretty good, but I haven't checked them since then.

 

Also the area all around the bleed screw was all kinda soaked from the brake fluid slowly collecting over time. I'm going to clean off as much of the caliper as I can with brake cleaner and then keep an eye on the situation. Maybe I'll see if I can get the screws replaced under warranty.....

I seem to have... "misplaced" the caps for the front bleed screws. I still have the caps on the rear ones. Would these be important to replace??

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by .RJ &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">take them out and clean the threads and put them back in. or buy new ones.

run away from speedbleeders....</TD></TR></TABLE>

You just saved me 30 bux, lol. I had my worries about speedbleeders..

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by George Knighton &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

The biggest problem people have with speed bleeders is not trusting that they're fully seated, and because there are threads still showing, they tighten them down too much, actually damaging the calipers in the process.

The second problem people have with speed bleeders is not using the sealant when putting them in the first time.

Jason Franza uses speed bleeders on his H2 car and says he's never had a problem with them. You'd think if it were a design problem, it would show up in the rigours of racing and with all the constant bleeding necessary in competition.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Thanks for clearing up what seems to be common misconception George.

 

i'm currently running speed bleeders. i'm glad i did it right the first time i put them in... i bought the sealant and applied them to the screws before putting them in.
i also did notice that the threads still showed a lot more even though it was pretty much in. i just torqued it to spec regardless... working fine for me!

 

ttt

 

George is absolutely dead on. No problems on my end.

 

had speedbleeders for about 2 years now, they rock just fine, no problems, makes bleeding easy as cheese.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Aleph &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">had speedbleeders for about 2 years now, they rock just fine, no problems, makes bleeding easy as cheese.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Same here. No problems.

 

Been using Speedbleeders forever... no issues... follow George's Advice and do not over-tighten... I use my thumb and index finger only, on a box-end 3/8 wrench to tighten. Once seated, wipe clean.. press the pedal hard and check again for leaks.. should be none. Those who leak have abused their speedbleeders, caliper threads, or both... or like George said, the thread sealant has worn off or was never used.