I've had much better luck with a pressure bleeder than with a vacuum bleeder, because you have to look for any place where the vacuum can suck air into the system.

I've had air suck in the threads of the bleeder screws, and the bubbles make it look like I need to keep bleeding forever. I learned to put a generous glob of grease around where the bleeder is threaded into the body of the caliper.

Likewise air sucking in around the hose where it is stuck onto the bleeder. Grease or a smaller-tighter hose is usually what I do.

I also find that those hoses get harder & harder after using with brake fluid. The clear hoses are almost disposable & you have to get new ones so they are soft again for a good seal. Likewise I haven't had great luck with the black-rubber adapters but that's probably because of the size of the Honda bleed screws.

 

You are right with the clear hoses they get hard to work with after a while. I usually have extra fuel or vacuum hose laying around that I use now.

 

Years ago a friend told me to run denatured alcohol through the brake bleeder and tubing to clean them. I've been doing that for years now and the tubing is still in good shape. I have replacement tubing just in case; but, haven't had to use them yet.

 

Redbull, can isopropyl alcohol be used in place of denatured alcohol to clean out the plastic tubing?

Today I set out to do the brake flush. I started drawing fluid out of the master cylinder and noticed it was already clear (see pic). At that point I started thinking that if the brake fluid is already clear in the master cylinder, will it also be clear at the bleed nipples? Let's say I empty (actually almost empty) the master cylinder and fill it with new fluid. When I start draining at the nipples, I could already be running clear and not be able to distinguish between the old fluid and new fluid. So I don't know if it is worth the exercise. Instead, should I just top off the master cylinder to the max line and call it a day?

I'm actually somewhat surprised that the fluid is clear. The last flush was done by the dealer 3 years ago. The reason I'm trying to do it now again is because the owner's manual recommends a change every 3 years.

 

Isopropyl alcohol should work. What I usually do is fill a disposable cup with the alcohol. Then use the bleeder to suck the alcohol through the tube into the bleeder container. Then pour out the alcohol from the container and wipe it clean. For the tubing, I detach it from the bleeder, then go outside and hold one end and spin the tubing for a few seconds to get most of the residual out.

If it was me, since 3 years has past, I would still bleed the fluid through the nipples. Brake fluid absorbs moisture from the air. Plus brake fluid isn't that expensive. After that you're good for another 2-3 years.

 

I second that even though it's clear it still absorbs moisture.

You do have me laughing though about this thread. Don't mind me though there's nothing wrong with making sure. Let us know how you are going to proceed.

 

Sean, feel free to LOL. You may be thinking this is such a simple procedure, I should be done already. The reason I'm trying to make sure is because I'd rather not be in a situation when I'm on the road I'm unable to stop.

The youtube videos I have watched must have been done using cars where the fluid may not have been changed for many years. So the old fluid was dark red or brown, which is a clear contrast to the new fluid which is very light colored. In any case, I went ahead with the flush procedure. Per Jim Blake's advice, I applied silicon grease to where the bleed screw is threaded and also around the nipple, making sure it didn't block the opening. I started off with left front. I saw a steady stream of bubbles. I wrote them off to a vacuum leak. I couldn't tell whether it is new fluid draining or not, and I stopped when a couple of inches had been drained into the cup. Then I did the right front. This time there were hardly any bubbles (perhaps a better seal). Again I could not tell new versus old fluid. I kept draining till the cup was full. That's when I realized I had over-drained. Fortunately, the master cylinder reservoir had not run dry. I refilled it. Then I took the car around the block to make sure brakes were working and not spongy. So far so good. I'll get to the rear ones tomorrow.

 

Yeah, always watch the master cylinder & don't let the reservoir run dry. My worst time was bleeding the last brake, I'm almost done, and I let the reservoir go dry & suck air. Now I have to start over to get air bubbles out of EVERYWHERE. But I don't have any more brake fluid and it's sunday & stores are closed...

 

That's my worst fear. I started to do my work on cars in the morning just in case. I was working on a BMW one day and got to a bearing assembly that I could not pull off. I fooled around with it for a couple hours using everything but the one thing I needed I didn't have (a puller). By the time I gave up harbor freight was closed so I had to wait until the morning to finish the job. That will never happen again.

 

Jim and Sean, sorry to hear about your experiences in running out of time and not being able to go to the store for the part/tool in order to complete the project. This is also my biggest fear. This hasn't happened to me but I've run into worse issues. There've been a couple of times when the repair went wrong and I had to have the car towed.

I got back to draining the rear brake lines today. I had purchased a smaller diameter plastic tube for the rear. Unfortunately, the diameter wasn't big enough and I ended up using the tubing that came with the bleed kit. Not surprisingly there were constant bubbles during the drain procedure. I was hoping that while air got in somehow into the drain tube, it wouldn't get back into the bleeder nipple. As I had mentioned previously, Amazon reviewers indicated that the O ring goes bad quickly. I found that the O-ring had expanded and wouldn't fit the groove any more. Luckily they had included a 2nd O-ring which I ended up using. This time I drained in stop and go fashion so that I could keep refilling the reservoir. Also, instead of emptying the cup into one discard container, I used an intermediate container to compare the subtle color difference between the last and the current discards to get some idea of whether I'm starting to drain new fluid. So I completed draining the rear brake lines. Again, I took the car around the block to test out the brakes. The pedal action does stop the car and the pedal behavior appears normal. I have my fingers crossed.

Conceptually it is a simple process but one has to attend to many details. Thanks for everybody's help in answering my questions (and there were many).and most of all for your encouragement to keep going. While I was draining the rear, the thought occurred to me to look into cleaning and adjusting the rear brakes. I decided this is for another time.