Posted by David Sherman on Saturday, August 07, 2004 at 10:32PM :
In Reply to: Think I found my Brake problem!! posted by J-Gilly on Saturday, August 07, 2004 at 10:17PM :
I don't think so. If you're talking about the filler cap, that's a vent hole and there should never be any pressure inside of there. If you can't get pressure and the system isn't leaking (that is, you aren't having to continually add fluid) your MC is not working right. Did you rebuild it yourself and maybe get something wrong, like the cup in backwards? Is it an old one and the cylinder is pitted with rust? Did you push the piston in when the cylinder was dry and possibly bung it up inside? Even if there's air in the system, you should be able to get some pressure if the MC's okay, though it would be spongy.
My method of thorough 1-man bleeding is as follows. Get about 15' of clear 1/4" vinyl tubing and a foot or two of 1/4" rubber vacuum hose. Open the bleed screw. Put the rubber hose over the bleed screw and stick the vinyl tube in the other end of the rubber hose. Run the vinyl tube around past the driver's side door so you can see what's going through it. Pump the brakes slowly while watching the tube. If the fluid is brown or milky, just pump it out onto the ground or into a container, and make sure you top up the MC before it gets down to where it'll suck more air. This is easy on a FF because you can look down into the MC while you're pumping. Once the brake fluid is coming out clean, clip the end of the tube over the MC some way or another (wire, clothes pin, etc) and continue to pump until no more bubbles are coming through the tube. This is much better than the 2-person "open/depress/close/release/repeat" method because it only takes one person and you can pump as long as you want until you're 100% sure all the bubbles are out.