Posted by JimmieD on Sunday, November 28, 2004 at 2:15AM :
In Reply to: w200 brakes cant get a good pedel posted by JOHN PHILLIPS on Saturday, November 27, 2004 at 3:41PM :
Hi John,
You didn't specifically say if you bench- bled the master, or just bled the brakes. There's a difference. In bench bleeding you use fittings screwed into the hydraulic line outlets that normally go to your brakes, and bleed the master itself. The fittings screw in, with a short length of rubber hose, and the ends of the hoses go right back in the m/c reservoir fluid. This way it first bleeds all the air out of master.
These master cylinder bleeders are usually available at parts stores [Napa] or they can help you fabricate some.
After this you would proceed to bleed your wheel cylinders, with the farthest one first, as passenger side rear, then driver's side rear, then passenger front and finally driver's front.
You can fabricate a simple one-man bleeding tool by punching a small hole in the lid of about a 12oz glass jar. Put a couple of inches of brake fluid in the jar, screw on the lid, and stick a piece of 1/4" rubber hose through hole in lid, so that tip of hose is fully submerged in fluid in jar. [You may want to attach something like bailing wire to the jar so you can hang it to prevent tip-over]
Use your wrench to crack bleeder valve open, then quickly close with wrench left in place, shove the other end of the hose on bleeder, crack it open again, and bleed line by pumping. Of course you want to keep an eye on fluid level in master cylinder. I would fully pump/bleed each wheel cylinder about 5-6 times.
This should get you brakes unless you changed a rod length adjustment or blew a wheel cylinder.
JimmieD
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