Best approach to bleeding the brakes

[lippy]

Originally Posted by patrickt

1) Put the surgical tubing on the bleeder screw, put the other end in to the mayonnaise jar. Fill the mayonnaise jar with just enough fluid to cover the bottom of the hose.

2) Fill reservoir with fresh fluid and crack bleeder screw.

3) Pump brakes several times. Inspect level of fluid in reservoir. Inspect fluid in mayonnaise jar and in the surgical tubing.

4) Keep pumping until the fresh fluid (using a different color fluid helps) is through the system and clearly visible in the surgical tubing. Your mayonnaise jar will be filling up, so you know you've done it correctly.

5) There will be no air in the system because any vacuum will just draw fluid back in to the system (not air). If you see air bubbles clinging to the side of the tube, plick them with your finger so they get pushed through to the mayonnaise jar. The tubing should be completely full of fluid with no air bubbles present.

6) Tighten the bleeder screw and pull the surgical tubing off it. Hold the tubing upright and it will drain in to the mayonnaise jar (remember, it is full of fluid).

7) This is a virtually fool-proof method of bleeding your brakes, and you can take your time, get distracted, and wander off, and it will still work perfectly.

I bled my brakes this way and it looks like it worked perfectly and quickly. I had one fitting that needed to be tightened but, other than that, no problems. The brake pedal seems very firm. I've always used the two-person method before. But if this works (and it does), I can't understand using speed bleeders, or pressure systems (unless you are a pro and need to do it quickly without pumping).

Since the reservoir on the ERA feeds both the brake and clutch cylinders, can I also hook up the clutch slave cylinder and bleed it before the engine is in, and bolt it onto the engine once it's in the car?