FTO AUSTRALIA

MrFT000 wrote:

Chiangstar Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 8:20 am Post subject:

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i think bleeding and changing the brake fluid would have made a lot of the difference in your brake pedal feel...

simon

I had my brakes bleeded a while back, but that didnt seem to fix it up. I cant remember what they said but they did something.

There are few method for bleeding the brakes, how did you do yours?

I didnt bleed them myself -a mechanic did them for me.

I am interested to learn about how to (different methods) bleed the brakes.

I did mine by:

- Take the cap off the brake reservoir (not easy with a GPvR strut brace!)

- Start at the wheel furtherest from the brake fluid reservoir (the rear left).

- Take off the wheel and find the nipple on the brake line.

- I used a brake bleeding kit (which was basically a clear piece of hose with a valve on the end which I got from SuperCheap) - attach this to the nipple. Use some sort of container to empty the fluid into.

- Use an 8mm open ended spanner to loosen the nipple a bit.

- Get someone to slowly pump the brake pedal while you watch the fluid being expelled, make sure all air bubbles are being forced out.

- Make sure the reservoir level does not fall below the protective mesh, otherwise you may get bubbles in the fluid. Keep checking this and add new brake fluid as required.

- Pump pedal until old fluid is expelled.

- Tighten nipple and remove hose

- Repeat for other wheels, while moving closer to the reservoir - ie rear right, front left, front right.

- When finished, top up reservoir and replace cap.


I basically followed the instructions from www.autospeed.com and those that came with the brake bleed kit.

Thank you Afterburner,

So the purpose of bleeding breaks is to get rid of any existing bubles in the braking system.

What are the indicators that there is a need to do bleeding?
Is it should be done after every break fluid change, or should be done more regularly?

mxysxy wrote: What are the indicators that there is a need to do bleeding?
Is it should be done after every break fluid change, or should be done more regularly?

When your brake pads are fairly new, & the rotor is fine, but you don't get much stopping power.

mxysxy wrote:So the purpose of bleeding breaks is to get rid of any existing bubles in the braking system.

What are the indicators that there is a need to do bleeding?
Is it should be done after every break fluid change, or should be done more regularly?

I think it should be done atleast on a yearly basis if you brake hard all the time. But normally they do it when ever you change your pads / rotors.

After a while of use brakefluid start to loose it's chemical properties i think, so after too much use, for example the boiling point drops, and it can become more like gue... so you become more prone to brake fade... I think... Brake specialists can test you brake fluids to c if it needs replacing.

Indicators that you may have is poor brake performance, brake fade on downhills is one too. etc. I would say if you don't know the history of your brakes to get them checked out anyway.