Brake bleeding - need sanity check

[FasterBass]

Hey all,

Need your sage advice.

09 Yukon SLT 4wd. Yesterday I noticed drivers front caliper was stuck and rotor was HOT. Ok, no problem. $100 and new caliper later I figured I'd be fine.

Swapped the new caliper in, used a pressure bleeder, no brakes. Hmm. I remember when doing the brakes the first time I just did pads and rotors that I could not unstick one of the rear bleeders. Seems like I'll have to do a full bleed, so went and replaced the rear caliper too.

Status: two new drivers side calipers.

Go to bleed and went through 3 bottles of fluid just trying to get the driver's rear brake to stop producing bubbles. It is at this point I figure I need to do an abs bleed. Worth noting that I also tried to drive it and try to activate abs. Pedal was horrible but would stop with some pumping.

Now here is where I think I messed up. Followed instructions on my Innova 5610, which said to start at drivers front caliper. Bled that one, moved to pass front. DID NOT REFILL Reservoir. I didn't have a sense of how quickly the abs bleed depleted the reservoir and I think I ran the mc dry. When I checked the bottle on pass front it was a frothy mess. Drivers front was not bubbly.

I then proceeded to try to bleed my way out of this mess to no avail. I probably pressure bled and abs bled the truck another 3 or 4 times respectively and kept getting frothyness from the abs bleed on the front circuit.

So here's where I am. After screaming a few hundred f bombs and sleeping, I think I must have hurt the original 140k master cylinder. It's either that or the abs pump is fried, but since the truck was braking fine earlier today I don't think that's it. Can anyone with more experience lend their 2 cents here before I light this truck on fire (or have it towed to a shop)? Thanks all.

 

[FasterBass]

Hey all,

Need your sage advice.

09 Yukon SLT 4wd. Yesterday I noticed drivers front caliper was stuck and rotor was HOT. Ok, no problem. $100 and new caliper later I figured I'd be fine.

Swapped the new caliper in, used a pressure bleeder, no brakes. Hmm. I remember when doing the brakes the first time I just did pads and rotors that I could not unstick one of the rear bleeders. Seems like I'll have to do a full bleed, so went and replaced the rear caliper too.

Status: two new drivers side calipers.

Go to bleed and went through 3 bottles of fluid just trying to get the driver's rear brake to stop producing bubbles. It is at this point I figure I need to do an abs bleed. Worth noting that I also tried to drive it and try to activate abs. Pedal was horrible but would stop with some pumping.

Now here is where I think I messed up. Followed instructions on my Innova 5610, which said to start at drivers front caliper. Bled that one, moved to pass front. DID NOT REFILL Reservoir. I didn't have a sense of how quickly the abs bleed depleted the reservoir and I think I ran the mc dry. When I checked the bottle on pass front it was a frothy mess. Drivers front was not bubbly.

I then proceeded to try to bleed my way out of this mess to no avail. I probably pressure bled and abs bled the truck another 3 or 4 times respectively and kept getting frothyness from the abs bleed on the front circuit.

So here's where I am. After screaming a few hundred f bombs and sleeping, I think I must have hurt the original 140k master cylinder. It's either that or the abs pump is fried, but since the truck was braking fine earlier today I don't think that's it. Can anyone with more experience lend their 2 cents here before I light this truck on fire (or have it towed to a shop)? Thanks all.

Also worth noting that after all that bleeding I have 0 pedal. Like, I had to use the parking brake to keep from hitting the back of my garage when parking it. It's worse now than when i had just replaced the calipers.

 

[wjburken]

Sorry to hear that you’re having issues.

When bleeding brakes, you did commit one cardinal rule which is letting the MC run dry.

The other thing I see is start in the caliper furthest away from the MC and work your way closer. Right Rear, Left Rear, Right Front, Left Front. I personally have had good luck with a vacuum bleeder. The one I have I bought from Harbor Freight for approx $100. It comes with a large reservoir that mounts to the MC to help keep it from running dry.

If it was me, I’d bleed your Master Cylinder then bleed your 4 calipers then do the ABS bleed and then bleed your 4 calipers again to get any residual air out.

Make sure to keep an eye on the MC level.

Others may have different suggestions.

 

[FasterBass]

Sorry to hear that you’re having issues.

When bleeding brakes, you did commit one cardinal rule which is letting the MC run dry.

The other thing I see is start in the caliper furthest away from the MC and work your way closer. Right Rear, Left Rear, Right Front, Left Front. I personally have had good luck with a vacuum bleeder. The one I have I bought from Harbor Freight for approx $100. It comes with a large reservoir that mounts to the MC to help keep it from running dry.

If it was me, I’d bleed your Master Cylinder then bleed your 4 calipers then do the ABS bleed and then bleed your 4 calipers again to get any residual air out.

Make sure to keep an eye on the MC level.

Others may have different suggestions.

Thanks for the help! Yeah, normally I would always do farthest from MC to closest but was following the instructions on the Innova 5610. Whenever I do the pressure bleed I always start from farthest away.

Ok, so MC first. Total PITA but what the hell. I'll try anything at this point.

 

[solli5pack]

When I did my Yukon with the Tech 2 it had me follow the same procedure. D/S then P/S front then P/S D/S rear. It is a real pita. You almost need 3 people, one in the truck, someone on the calipers and another keeping the reservoir full. Also big help to have all 4 wheels off. I would say you have some air trapped in your system. Go grab a gallon of brake fluid and flush it good!

 

[RichardCranium]

Sorry to hear that you’re having issues.

When bleeding brakes, you did commit one cardinal rule which is letting the MC run dry.

The other thing I see is start in the caliper furthest away from the MC and work your way closer. Right Rear, Left Rear, Right Front, Left Front. I personally have had good luck with a vacuum bleeder. The one I have I bought from Harbor Freight for approx $100. It comes with a large reservoir that mounts to the MC to help keep it from running dry.

If it was me, I’d bleed your Master Cylinder then bleed your 4 calipers then do the ABS bleed and then bleed your 4 calipers again to get any residual air out.

Make sure to keep an eye on the MC level.

Others may have different suggestions.

Solid procedure here.

And don't fret, you'll get it back. It's just going to take some time and repeating the procedure over a few times. I can also tell you, as a former BMW Master Tech, getting air into the ABS system can be a pain. Even with proper tools to help you electronically bleed the ABS system. What we always did, once we had enough brake pedal to feel safe enough to drive, is take the vehicle out and stomp/hold the brake pedal a few times. Get it into ABS mode, force the pump to push that air out. If you don't have what you need to properly bleed the ABS system itself, this will be another useful procedure to proper bleed that system.

(don't bring your beer with you on that drive to activate ABS, you'll have a waste and a mess)

 

[wjburken]

Solid procedure here.

And don't fret, you'll get it back. It's just going to take some time and repeating the procedure over a few times. I can also tell you, as a former BMW Master Tech, getting air into the ABS system can be a pain. Even with proper tools to help you electronically bleed the ABS system. What we always did, once we had enough brake pedal to feel safe enough to drive, is take the vehicle out and stomp/hold the brake pedal a few times. Get it into ABS mode, force the pump to push that air out. If you don't have what you need to properly bleed the ABS system itself, this will be another useful procedure to proper bleed that system.

(don't bring your beer with you on that drive to activate ABS, you'll have a waste and a mess)

Used an open patch of grass or a gravel road to bleed the ABS module many times.

 

[j91z28d1]

something sounds off to me.. why was the caliper locked up? you said it wasn't stuck?


if above advice doesn't work, try this.. at this point I'd throw a new master on it. bench bleed that.. once installed do a slow manual bleed, if it will gravity bleed some, let it do that. (I haven't had good luck with vac bleeder and power bleeders. they just make a mess and waste fluid for me.) if it won't, have someone push the pedal down and hold with the bleeder open. close before lifting, till you get fresh clean fluid at all four corners. then run your abs bleed, but I found what worked for me is to not follow the manual, just run thru the program, do what it asks of the pedal, but don't worry about opening the bleeders, then see what you have for pedal and go from there. if it's decent do the pump hold bleed thing. if it still goes to the floor at that point, you're byond my knowledge haha.

the auto bleed really needs that pressurized filling system it call for to work correctly. I've never had any luck with it. but I run thru the program to active the pump and stuff, seems to work.

 

[mattbta]

MC seal(s) could be shot if the pedal went all the way to the floor during manual bleeds. Want to keep a 2x4 under to prevent from overextending and thus blowing out the seal(s).

 

[FasterBass]

something sounds off to me.. why was the caliper locked up? you said it wasn't stuck?


if above advice doesn't work, try this.. at this point I'd throw a new master on it. bench bleed that.. once installed do a slow manual bleed, if it will gravity bleed some, let it do that. (I haven't had good luck with vac bleeder and power bleeders. they just make a mess and waste fluid for me.) if it won't, have someone push the pedal down and hold with the bleeder open. close before lifting, till you get fresh clean fluid at all four corners. then run your abs bleed, but I found what worked for me is to not follow the manual, just run thru the program, do what it asks of the pedal, but don't worry about opening the bleeders, then see what you have for pedal and go from there. if it's decent do the pump hold bleed thing. if it still goes to the floor at that point, you're byond my knowledge haha.

the auto bleed really needs that pressurized filling system it call for to work correctly. I've never had any luck with it. but I run thru the program to active the pump and stuff, seems to work.

I bought a new mc under the assumption that, after 140k let's take an old part out of the equation. I'll bench bleed, install and update. Probs sunday