Brake Bleeding After Front (yep frozen) Caliper Replacement (Longish)

[Quattro]

Sorry to bring up yet again a topic from hell but I am going bat $#!T. I have read and searched and read and had five snickers bars but no love.

The story:

• Replaced front calipers (NAPA lifetime warranty FTW).
• Gravity bled front calipers.
• Puzzled over having only one bleeder valve on a four pot caliper.
• Sucked fluid (ATE Super Blue FWIW)out of MC reservoir.
• Added ATE Gold.
• Kept gravity bleeding front calipers until Gold was coming.
• Sealed things up and went to the right rear caliper.
• Gravity bled with not much coming out.
• Brake pedal depressed, ignition on, let it flow.
• Sealed things up and went to left rear.
• Brake pedal depressed, ignition on, let it flow.
• Went to right front and gravity bled.
• Went to left front and gravity bled.

Woohoo, I'm done. Not so fast says the brake pedal and to the floor it goes. WTF??!!

Repeated the above but this time with ignition on for the front calipers. No love.

With ignition on the system pressurizes after about four starts and stops. Two pedal applications which go almost all the way to the floor and the pump activates for 10 seconds and pressurizes. Two pedal applications...

Just did my '03 S8 last week with no problems albeit without a caliper replacement. This is beyond frustrating and here I am trying to stop drinking.

One thing I noticed was that the front outboard (the side with no bleeder valve) pad on each side wiggles laterally a bit. Air? How do I get it out without a bleeder on that side. I did let her sit overnight (Thursday into Friday) hoping air would percolate before repeating the above steps for the THIRD time today.

Apologies for the "HELP" first post but damn, I've gone thought 2+ liters of ATE, good clear flow from all corners and still no pedal.

What have I missed/doing wrong? Feel free to call me a dumbass and offer help but please don't just call me a dumbass. Remember, I'm trying to quit drinking. :ybrick:

Cheers,

Mark

 

[RPS13]

Open bleeder, compress pistons on the non-bleeder side. Then bleed caliper, repeat.

I'd also suggest doing a pedal bleed on the front calipers - the higher fluid velocity does get more air out compared to a gravity bleed if there's trapped air in the system.

3 pumps, hold pedal, open bleeder, close bleeder before pedal hits the floor. Repeat.

 

[z28forlife]

Open bleeder, compress pistons on the non-bleeder side. Then bleed caliper, repeat.

I'd also suggest doing a pedal bleed on the front calipers - the higher fluid velocity does get more air out compared to a gravity bleed if there's trapped air in the system.

3 pumps, hold pedal, open bleeder, close bleeder before pedal hits the floor. Repeat.

This:thumb3:

 

[SSt4r]

And don't let the reservoir run dry as bleeding the ABS pump in supposed to be a PROJECT.

 

[BlackWorksInc]

Did you let air get into the master cylinder unit, because that's not going to end well for you if you did... damn thing is a pain to bleed when that happens.

 

[RUN-4-LIFE]

Replaced front calipers on my 07 and rears on my brothers 04 and noticed one person bleeds are hard? Hard to get a friend and press and depress brake petal, open closed bleeder until it flowed....

I feel your pain, my front brakes went from a pad replacement to a son of a beach I'm just doing everything.... One piston froze on the passenger front couldn't get it to budge, so just replaced both calipers... 80 bucks turned into nearly 400.. Dealer wanted 450 per caliper, went with auto zone because they were the only guys to have my calipers in stock because there are 3 different ones made for our fronts.. Thanks Toyota....

 

[Quattro]

Nobody called me a dumbass. Yeah baby, it's going to be a good day indeed.

RPS/Z28, I like the "open bleeder and compress the pistons" trick but why not just put another bleeder on the caliper? C'est la vie I guess.

SSt4r/BlackWorks, yeah I read that I'd be $crewed if air got into the ABS/MC but given my procedure I don't know how it would. That said, given my procedure I don't know how/why the brakes did not bleed out so anything is possible.

RUN, fortunately my local NAPA had the correct casting in stock for $85 per caliper after core with lifetime warranty. Oh, I did notice that the NAPA remans had a spring clip at the base of the piston boots which the originals did not. Time will tell if it helps.

I will report back after I work on her today with a buddy. Just got back from taking Wifey to work as this ('04 Sport V8 4WD) is her daily. Yeah, I'm the kind of guy that my car is mine and her's is her's with the exception of maintenance so up at 3:30AM it is.

You guys are the best.

Cheers,

Mark

 

[Gatafly]

Maybe I am wrong, but I thought you were not supposed to turn the ignition on. When I replaced both front calipers, rotors and pads last year i did it the old fashioned way. I first used acheap vacuum bleeding tool, but tgen put my wife in the drivers seat to pump up pressure then I opened the bleeder. Did that a couple times and I had great new firm brakes.

 

[Quattro]

Well I would like to bless you all with total consciousness but alas that is way beyond my powers. Hell, I could not even bleed my brakes but now I have total brake bleeding consciousness thanks to all of you. As best as I can tell, the tag team bleeding and the outboard piston compression was the trick. No more 3AM wakeups to take Wifey to work. Fishing? Well that's another story entirely.

Cheers,

Mark

 

[tron999]

you should buy a motive pressure bleeder for the future. Makes these jobs super easy.

 

[RPS13]

Yea, the motiv bleeder is nice. I lent mine out and never got it back.

I've thought about buying one, but I put speedbleeders on my track car, so that makes the yearly bleed a 10-15 min affair.

Harbor Freight has a cheap vacuum pump for brake bleeding that's like $20 with a 20% off coupon. Might be worth a shot if you're still having issues.