Brake Nipples - Speed Bleeders And Brembo & Falcon Standard Brakes

[turbotrana]

My BMW has a screw cap on the master cylinder and I have a fitting from my radiator pressure tester kit (one fitting just happen to be exactly what was needed) that allows me to pressurise the reservoir to around 10 to 15 psi and then I just undo the bleed nipple and all the work is done for you by air pressure.

The falcon radiator cap could probably be modified so you could pressurise the reservoir. Its makes it a one man job and very easy and you are sure its bled.

I have a proffessional suction bleader but this takes alot of hand effort to suck the fluid thru without touching brakes but again its a sure thing to get all the air out.

With ABS if you get air in the system sometimes the foot pedel method does not get the air out and sometimes you just cant get the fluid started so you have to resort to one of the above.

[spoolxr6]

Wow! How often are you guys bleeding your brakes to go to these extreme measures? What ever happened to a hose in a jar and a mate pumping the brakes??

[PhilMeUp]

Wow! How often are you guys bleeding your brakes to go to these extreme measures? What ever happened to a hose in a jar and a mate pumping the brakes??

What is this "mates" that you speak of?

My taxi is on the road pretty close to 24/7 so access to it for maintenance is a bit limited. The last time I flushed the fluid was back in January, and it's due for it again now. In January I started at about midnight and by the time I had it all done, had thoroughly test driven the car to a point where I was 100% confident it was 4:30am. I also changed all pads and had to make really, really, really, really sure that it was all going to work properly.

That was in summer. Nice and warm outside. Dunno about you, but I don't want to spend three hours in my front yard at that time of night in winter.

One of the reasons that I'm looking forward to the Brembo calipers so much is the much easier access to the bleed nipples on all of the calipers. Last time (on the standard calipers) I did the back brakes first and it didn't take very long. Was rather proud of myself for being so quick and efficient. Then I did the front ones. Oh dear. People that commit major crimes should be punished by making them bleed Falcon front calipers. In a front yard at 3am.

It's easy enough in daylight, but imagine doing this late at night:

[Guest XR09]

I just suck out most of whats in the reservoir with a baster. Put the car on stands. Connect fish tank air lines to the brake nipples and put them in a jar. Refill the reservoir with new brake fluid.

Crack a beer and have six more. Every now and then checking the reservoir has not run dry.

A couple of pumps at the end and go round and tighten the bleeders.

Edited 10/06/11 09:25 PM by XR09

[PhilMeUp]

Update:

After making billions of phone calls all over the place I couldn't find any of these in Perth. Some places had heard of them but never seen them, and other places had never even heard of them. Lots of frustration here.

I rang the Australian distributor for Russel (ie Rocket Industries) and it turned out that they actually didn't have any in the country. They've actually never imported them! So, overseas mail order it had to be. At least I tried.

So I ordered some speed bleeders from America a few weeks ago and they arrived today. The brake fluid in my taxi is due for flushing and I'd love to do it tonight but it's raining and wet outside. Bugger. Will try to get it done tomorrow night, when the girlfriend is over. Goody.

They take an 11mm spanner (same as the Brembo nipple), instead of the 10mm on the standard one:

Here are the three types of nipple together, standard, Brembo and speed bleeder. The speed bleeders have got some sort of thread sealant on the threads to help seal. I also have a bottle of this stuff coming separately but it hasn't arrived yet - http://speedbleeder.zoovy.com/c=PIhTud99i52HXZhrMbRKSgtJy/product/THREADSEALANT/Sealant.html

The holes in the bottom of the speed bleeder are nice and big. The end that the hose goes over is also much larger than on the standard nipple, which should help with keeping the hose on. And the neck where the spanner goes is the largest of the three, which will help prevent stripping if the nipple is done up too tight.

[discostig]

Strip that nipple!

Thanks for the info Phil! I'll do the old method though I suspect..or get Luke to do it since he's obviously so passionate!

[Slash]

This thread is NSFW... Nipples & anal is mentioned on both pages!

As for brake flushing, my local Brake & Clutch place do full flush for $30 inclusive of fluid, but I pay a little extra to get high temp fluid in there for track days & the like. Very cheap & always a great job!

[discostig]

Far out $30, if you think about taking your own time to do it you're almost saving money getting them to do it!

[PhilMeUp]

I'm Bleeding For You

Starting on Deb's taxi first (girlfriend). Ladies first.

It was dark within minutes. Some guy called Martin Luther King once gave a big speech, where he said, "I have a dream that some day all men shall be equal". I also have a dream. Some day, I shall work on a car in daylight. Working on a car without spending the night holding a torch in my mouth would be lovely. Someone really needs to invent a torch that tastes like chocolate instead of the usual plastic and metal tastes.

Deb's brake fluid reservoir. Not completely bad but not real clean either.

A check with my brake fluid tester showed that it was up to 2% water. Again, not completely bad but not the best. Time to fix that.

This is what I used for cleaning out the reservoir: Coke bottle for the old fluid, big 60mL syringe for sucking the fluid out (get them from anywhere that sells stuff for horses) and a rubber glove.

I used the syringe to remove the old fluid and put it in the Coke bottle. Then I refilled the reservoir with clean fluid, put the glove on and poked around with my fingers to get the other junk mixed into the fluid (the glove keeps my hand clean). Then I drained that fluid and refilled it again. A bit excessive, but thorough.

Nice clean reservoir. There's still a bit of fluid in each of the two holes that lead to the brake booster, thus ensuring I don't get air bubbles into the system.

The old fluid. Yummy.

Standard brake nipple on the rear caliper. Very easy to access and replace.

The speed bleeder in place. Took seconds to swap it over.

Previously, when I've bought clear tubing hose from hardware shops for bleeding brakes, I've bought various different sizes. This is because I've never been clever enough at the time to remember to take the actual nipple with me to the shop so that I can get the right size tubing. Brilliant. However, this also meant that I have a collection of hoses. It turned out that 6mm tubing fitted the speed bleeder nipples perfectly.

I hooked up some hose and a bottle, and then pumped away at the brake pedal, without having to worry about twisting the bleed nipple back and forth. Very quick and easy.

Anyone who has flushed brake fluid on a BA/BF Falcon will know what a nightmare it is to access the nipples on the front calipers. In the past I've removed the calipers to do it. Now it's easy, because you only have to loosen the nipple half a turn and get a hose on to it.

Got it all done and Deb had to take off for a private booking that she had. By now I had figured out that doing all this (including replacing the original nipples with the speed bleeders) was a one-person job. The consistently bored look on her face was a hint about this.

Finally, it was time to do the same on my taxi. I've been very keen to get this done for some time. But, tragically, my magic moment had to be delayed due to bad weather.

It kept raining on and off like this for the next couple of hours, dragging this out a lot longer than it should have taken. But, my car definitely needed fresh brake fluid, and it was going to be done.

I was about about to bleed the first one (ie rear passenger side) when it occurred to me that now would be a good time to see if the rear calipers from my Brembo kit will actually fit on the wagon.

When I was originally negotiating to buy these, the seller did explain that he had bought them for his XR6 ute but had since sold it before putting the calipers on. This didn't really seem relevant at the time, but became very important once I remembered that my wagon has a completely different back end to a sedan.

The wagon back end and ute are the same (as far as brakes go), so it has turned out to be a very lucky fluke that the guy had a ute. I had been comparing part numbers on the mounting brackets to sedan ones and they were different, which I took as confirmation that these were for a ute and would therefore fit my car.

Time to find out. This was a truly glorious moment. I even got Deb to hold and pass the caliper to me, as she had cleaner hands and I didn't have any velvet gloves handy. She was very dismissive of my explanation that this was one of the greatest moments in the history of the universe. Needless to say, I was extremely pleased to confirm that the rear calipers have the mounting brackets that are suitable for a wagon.

You can also see the Koni shock absorber in the background.

I replaced all four nipples with the speed bleeders and bled the line at each caliper. This was much, much easier than when I did it previously (five months ago). I checked the reservoir to make sure that the fluid was clean.

Conclusion:

My experiment with fitting speed bleeders has been a huge success. Flushing the fluid and bleeding brake lines is now extremely easy and can be done by one person. There is now no need to have a second person pushing the brake pedal whilst someone loosens and tightens up the bleed nipples.

Just put some hose on, turn the nipple half a turn or so and go pump away at the brake pedal. To be thorough, I was counting 15 pedal pumps for each caliper and then a few more just to be certain. Bleeding brakes doesn't require that much pumping but I wanted to make absolutely sure that all the old fluid was flushed out. I had plenty of new fluid ready to use - 6 x 500mL bottles of PBR Super Dot 4, which I had bought recently for $4.95 each (hence buying 6, although I now realise I should have bought a lot more).

I took my car for a test drive and it was immediately obvious that the brakes were much better. It now takes less pedal pressure than it did previously to make a sudden stop. My taxi is now a safer vehicle, and I also now know that when I fit the Brembo calipers I won't get any nasty surprises when I put the rear ones on.

Why haven't I put the Brembo stuff on yet? There's a lot more to this than I originally expected, but I'm getting there. I've got the wheels (ie that clear the calipers). I've got the disc rotors. I've got the low-dust ceramic pads (to keep the wheels clean). The final piece of the puzzle is braided brake lines. I rang the distributor today and am waiting for an email with pricing. Once I've got that I'll order the brake lines and have everything I need.

This car will soon have the best brakes of any taxi in Australia. I'll need to keep a large paint scraper in the car to peel passengers off the windscreen.

But why do all this? On a taxi? Exactly, I'm doing this because it is a taxi. It's my taxi, and it's going to be the best performing and most organised taxi that I can create. The car has good suspension (Koni shock absorbers). It has good tyres, that grip well in all conditions. Soon it will have the ultimate in brakes.

The car is insured for $15,000. My most recent insurance policy was $4,300 for the year, and that's doing it as cheap as possible. I have a $2,000 excess instead of the standard $1,000. And I've got the maximum no-claim bonus.

I regularly come across situations where I have to brake suddenly. Animals run across the road often, such as cats, dogs, rabbits, foxes and even the occasional kangaroo. Then there are the drunk idiots that run out in front of the car in the night club areas. If I hit any of these then it's going to cost me money and cause me grief.

If I crash then I'm out of pocket for the $2,000 excess. And then there's the loss of income, both for myself and my day driver while the car is off the road. I would also risk losing him to another car, and good day drivers are extremely hard to find right now (ie ones that look after the vehicle).

I'll hopefully use the Brembo kit on several cars, and possibly keep it for the rest of my life. When this car is retired from taxi work some day then the kit will get transferred to the next one. Ford stopped making station wagons in September 2010 so it's likely that I will have to switch to a Late model camira wagon some day (ie sedans don't have enough carrying capacity). When that happens I'll hopefully be able to get suitable mounts and discs, and keep using the calipers.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Nice write up Phil, Are you aware of the issues with 4 pot calipers on the rear of live axle vehicles?

Hint: When bleeding the standard ford front caliper, Remove the upper slide bolt and tilt the caliper so it is vertical, and then bleed the caliper as you did with the speed bleeder. The position of the bleed screw when the caliper is installed allows an air pocket to develop (the top of the piston bore is higher than the bleed screw)

EDIT: Apologises if you have already mentioned but how much where the bleeders all up?