Here is a step by step tutorial on bleeding your brakes by yourself. This does not require one way valves or a long stick. Also it frees you from the hassle of trying to convince that whiny friend or loved one to “help you out for a second”.
Supplies:
- Clear rubber tubbing that will will fit snugly over the bleeder nipples and stretch from the farthest rear caliper to the brake reservoir.
- Teflon tape.
Instructions: Do one caliper at a time.
- remove bleeder screw and dry off any remaining brake fluid. Don’t worry about brake fluid that is flowing out of the caliper.
- wrap the threads of the bleeder screw with about 5-7 snug wraps.
- reinstall bleeder screw. screw it back in all the way. It should be difficult to screw in by hand but not impossible. If you can’t get it in by hand or with light turns with wrench or pliers, remover tape and redo with less tape.
- slide hose over bleeder nipple. the hose should fit snugly but should also be easy to put on and take off by hand. Iv had situations where the nipple was too wide for a hose. In this case I used a cordless drill and a file like a lathe and reduced the size of the nipple.
- Make sure the brake reservoir is toped off because the fluid needed to fill the hose will take up quite a bit of fluid and you DON’T want to run you master cylinder dry. When I do this on my civic, it usually takes half the reservoir to fill the hose.
- open bleeder valve and start pumping the brake peddle. You will see the the fluid running through the hose. Check the reservoir periodically to make sure there is still fluid in it. When the fluid is almost to the end of the hose, find a way to secure the end so the fluid drains back into the reservoir. If you submerge the end into the brake fluid, make sure you pump slowly when you see air bubble getting close to the reservoir. If you pump to hard it will force those air bubbles back into the system. Also if you see a steady stream of tiny bubbles that means that air is getting by the teflon tape. Re-tape the bleeder threads.
- When your sure there is no air left, close the bleeder valve and redo steps 1-3 for the next caliper before removing the hose from the last caliper. Otherwise you will have a pretty big mess.
Iv done this with multiple cars and it works every time. Iv done 5 or 6 bleedings on the same tape and have not had to change it yet. However like I said in step 6, if you see a steady stream of tiny bubble, the tape has failed and needs to be redone.