Ed's Daily Fun 2SS

[Eddymel1998]

Welp, I did the brakes, this really was a 3 day job I ended up doing in like 2, mostly because of the painting for the rears, so it's not perfect but it's good enough, had to hurry to finish it yesterday and barely made it, so here's the rundown:
I knew it was gonna be tight so as soon as I got home on Friday I got to work, was able to take off and clean the rears, taped up some water bottles to catch the drips from lines and threw wheels on just to keep it off the jacks overnight


Next day spent maybe 1-2 hours masking off the brakes (I'm really bad at it) and started painting, at same time I was able to install the front disks, pads, calipers and lines for both sides, had to trim the dust shield to clear the new calipers, but thankfully dremmel and me a good friends now so it was easy, I did almost run out of cutting disks though, this stuff just chewed them up.


Then Sunday I decided to give maximum time for calipers to dry so waited until about 4, still messed it up a bit, if I had a bit more time I could've gotten them to look much better but car needed to be running next day, while waiting I installed rear lines and dreaded the bleeding. Overnight I also left the pins for the rears soak in some soapy water just so that the pads move smoother on them, didn't look spotless but good enough. So I went to bleed, long story short, found bunch of leaks, wasted a lot of time and by the time I was mostly done it was dark and I was rushing it, was able to go get the car out and bed the brakes, tripped abs just to test, car stopped so hard the rear seat folded


Skip to today, about 60% of the pedal travel is just nothing, everything works fine in the last 40%, so guessing there is still air in the lines, will have to do more work today, my biggest worry is that I'm using a pressure bleeder and that I might have blown a seal on the master cylinder or that there is still a leak somewhere, so guess more work for today. Rears will also have the brembo stickers but those are still in the mail.

[Eddymel1998]

I am also leaving out a bunch, like hours spent cleaning, rinsing, soaking with various cleaners just to get maybe 80% of the grime off the rear calipers so paint is not on cleanest surface, or the fact that first day car moved back a bit while raising and dropping rear so I and to push it in neutral to close garage with zero brakes, or getting face pelted with metal sparks from cutting (had safety glasses but not face shield) and it all burning the whole night, all the spilled expensive brake fluid, and not to forget when I went to bed the brakes and realized going down the street that all the lug nuts were still fingie tighty and car was wobbling like drunk, then finally so much brake dust all over everything that by the end of each day I could pass for Justin Trudeau.

[SlowLS1]

Turned out great, hard work with a tangible results like this makes it all worth wild.

BTW, novel idea using the 2x4 to hold the caliper in place on the saw horse for painting...

[Eddymel1998]

A 2x4 is one of the most versatile tools out there, up there with flathead screwdriver and an empty water bottle, all part of ancient teachings passed on to me by my dad, but that guy could probably rebuild a motor using some sticks and trash found in the ditch by the road.

[The_bald_eagle_machine]

Is it just like bleeding standard brakes? I have this job ahead of me, but i'm used to the old school someone holding the brake pedal while I crack the bleeders method lol.

[Aqua Blue RS/SS]

I don’t even pump them. Just gravity bleed and have never had a problem ever abs, non abs, don’t make a difference always works perfect for me.

[Eddymel1998]

Honestly whole thing has been such a pain that I'm starting to wonder if I'm doing it right, I bought one of those power bleeders that hooks up to the brake booster reservoir and pump to 10 psi, then I crack the bleeders starting RR inner and moving down the sequence from there, I noticed that I get less bubbles the more I open the bleeders as well. I think the biggest issue is that I drained about 15-16floz out of the whole system just leaving it overnight, which is good for getting fluid out but probably opened up lots of cavities to trap air.

[acutron42]

Yep, gravity bleed or if you cant get a full pedal you might have to run the abs module with a scan tool if you lost that much fluid.

[Eddymel1998]

If say theoretically I don't have a tool capable of that, could I just fill it all up then go rally it down the street to activate abs and repeat a few times? Also would just using pressure bleeder to get the bubbles out of that system work or is there like an enclosed system that needs to trigger so it can let fluid flow though it, like how you have to get the engine hot before thermostat opens rest of the cooling system.

[acutron42]

I have never done that but maybe someone else can chime it. Sometimes they can just be pesky & time consuming when you take all the calipers off @ once. If you ever do this again use the old copper & put a bolt & nut on each banjo fitting as you take them off. That way you wont loose as much fluid. My friend only runs the abs if he is having a tough time & needs to get the vehicle off the lift quicker.

[SlowLS1]

When I did mine, I had all 4 calipers off for quite a while...

I did the old school pump, hold, bleed, and it worked just fine.

[Eddymel1998]

Yeah I think I'll just bleed them all again, probably just product of rushing it, looks like the method I was using is like an accelerated gravity bleed, so I will probably stick to that since time is short (thankfully I can bleed with wheels still on the car because the spokes are spaced out), I wish I could do the pump and hold method but not really anyone around I could borrow for that, even if it was slower would be nice to have someone around to tell me I'm not going crazy. Thanks for all the info, takeaway is definitely that it's a little bit easier you don't drain all the fluid at once, also does anyone know how the brake system is plumbed, from what I could see there are two lines (assuming front and rear) coming from master cylinder into the ABS unit, then it splits into 4 (guessing one per caliper)

[Eddymel1998]

I am happy to report, the culprit was front left outer brake caliper, lots of air in there, on less happy news I can see the brake fluid drops started eating the new paint on rear right caliper but just around the bleeder, paint was more of a "from distance" thing anyways so juts way she goes

[SlowLS1]

Story time: When I was doing my brakes, rotors, and air suspension, she sat on stands for weeks on end over the winter. I left my bleeders finger tight knowing I still had to bleed them. Same caliper as you, outside bleeder had a slow trickle that took the powder coating off of my freshly rebuilt and coated calipers. Looks like a trickle of white blood after cleaning it up. White on a copperish bronze color stands out :(

I thought a had them tight enough for just "sitting" but I was wrong. I knew what brake fluid does but thought it would be ok. I was wrong. Lesson learned.

Learned lesson was: You can NEVER bee too careful when working with brake fluid. Luckily it's the passenger side, so I seldom see it unless I'm cleaning the wheels.