Bleeding brakes, what gives feels like pourage?

[DocMT]

I've never run the fluid below low and sucked air.
Please see the '04 FSM pages attached. I followed steps 2.(a) to (e). This restores the solid feel for me. I've had to do it several times a week apart on occasion to get it right.
I believe the steps in the FSM from 2.(f) on are to bleed the ABS actuator portion of the MC. I know it says to use a hand-held tester or ABS actuator checker but I've had good results by repeating the steps above. Then again, I've never run the fluid low and may not be encountering the same issue.

It would be nice to get a scan tool that can do this so the link cabowally gave will be helpful. (cabowally, would you mind starting a thread to review that Scantool if you have it?)

To the OP (Champ306),
Is your brake line connection to the caliper tight? Any chance it is slowly sucking in air?

Yes, I think your method will work fine as long as you don't suck air into the master cylinder. If you manage to do that, all bets are off as far as I'm concerned.

When I bled my brakes, I bled them enough to flush ALL old fluid out of the entire system. The back brakes were easy because the pump did all the work. I just kept bleeding until the fluid coming out was new & fresh. The fronts had to be done manually, with the "step on the pedal and open the bleeder and repeat" method. It probably took me about 25 cycles on each front wheel to clear out all the old fluid. When I was done, the pedal felt like new again, no spongy feeling at all.