Unusual way to bleed brakes. Just might help someone.

[Ricko1966]

Okay I am always thinking about car stuff,sometimes for no reason. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have to swap out front hubs, and calipers on the daily tomorrow, hubs calipers and rotors are coming off another vehicle with good working brakes and bearings. So me thinking what could go wrong. No new calipers available anywhere today or tomorrow. So I will swap and hope for the best. My fear is the 35 year old bleeders will break, so I started brain storming,what will I do? NBD if a bleeder breaks I'll remove one pad to allow room for the piston to extend,pump the pedal to extend the piston.Rotate the caliper so the banjo fitting is the highest point loosen the banjo,compress the caliper, tighten the banjo. IMHO that will push all the air out through the port for the brake hose. Now that I've thought of it I see no reason a man couldn't one man bleed calipers without broken bleeders the same way using the bleeder. One pad out to extend the piston, loosen the bleeder, compress the piston tighten the bleeder. I have no doubt it will work. For those that don't know you can just use a small pry bar as a lever to press the piston.

 

[Radiohead]

I gotta think about this one, but the logic seems solid....

 

[Ricko1966]

Makes perfect sense to me piston extended,air and fluid in the chamber in the caliper. Compress the caliper to push the air and fluid out instead of using the master. I may use a pedal depressor also, I always wanted to make a pedal depressor out of a pogo stick. That would be awesome.

 

[xm20k]

I don't see why it wouldn't, you basicly just swaped what's applying the pressure to force out the air.

Pump the pedal to push air into caliper, crack the line use pressure on piston to force out air, tighten line, repeat.

 

[Keith Seymore]

Yes - I have done that when replacing master cylinders at the racetrack.

I figure the "bubble" is right there at the master/line joint, and it shouldn't take much fluid volume to push that bubble up into the reservoir.

K

 

[Ricko1966]

Worked like a champ.

 

[Camar068]

Worked like a champ.

would the gravity method help?

 

[Ricko1966]

Not a fan of gravity bleeding. But using the caliper instead of the master for the pressure source worked and was convenient.

 

[hack_man]

Why not a fan of gravity bleed? I went nuts once trying unsuccessfully to bleed my brakes with the two man method to the point I called a local shop for advice.
They suggested "gravity bleed" which worked like a charm.

 

[Ricko1966]

Gravity bleed isn't the same on all vehicles depending on residual pressure valves, stand off valves master and reservoir location,line routes, etc. Also the fluid is moving so slow and with such small volume the air can actually keep moving up the lines as the fluid moves down. In my instance, I am 99% certain gravity feed would not have been the right move.

 

[Camar068]

Gravity feed isn't the same on all vehicles depending on residual pressure valves, stand off valves master and reservoir location, etc. Also the fluid is moving so slow and with such small volume the air can actually keep moving up the lines as the fluid moves down. In this instance, I am 99% certain gravity feed would not have been the right move.

I did this while after cracking the bleeder open for gravity bleed, tapping with an rubber mallet. You could see the air bubbles come out of the clear hose. Tap/bang a bit to your desire until no bubbles coming out. Doesn't take much time to clear them on an 86 k10.

[edit] I let it bleed for about 12 hrs on a sunday and checked fluid level while watching football.

 

[Ricko1966]

The way I did it only took seconds and was one man.

 

[Craig Nedrow]

Your a Sick man Rocco your brain just never shuts off but that’s a darn good idea. I wish I would’ve thought of that when I was doing my brakes a couple weeks ago drove me nuts.

 

[Grit dog]

Thanks for sharing. As you confirmed it works well. Aside from being a bit messy.
As I haven’t lived in the rust belt nor dealt with vehicles that are rusted upon 30 years, it’s never come up. But used to do that when necessary back in the day.