Bleeding brakes got me scratchin' my head

[Fedupfatman]

G'day gents,

Apologies if this has been covered in another thread on here.

Basically I replaced my front brake discs over the weekend. I re-used the pads as they've not long been changed & there is loads of chunky meat left on them.

I came to bleed my calipers & this is where my troubles start.

With the engine off, a few pumps of the pedal & the pedal goes from feeling spongey to quite hard. Great stuff. But with the engine running, the pedal goes fairly soft under foot & makes a kinda whooshing noise as I press & doesn't go hard. I got a mate to help me bleed them, pressing the pedal a few times, holding & I was on nipple crack duty. There seems to be no air coming through the tube, just regular good old fluid. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance, M.

[Jim Archer]

May just be the pads needing to bed into the new discs.

Jim

[v8dave]

First thought is why did the brakes need bleeding ?

Second is do you have abs ?

When replacing pads you just push the pistons back into the calipers while avoiding overflowing the master cylinder, no need to open bleed nipples.

[Fedupfatman]

Thanks chaps.

Yes I do have ABS.

I'd pushed the pistons back into the caliper to allow for the new disc thickness & was careful not to overflow the master cylinder. I pumped the brakes back out once I was done & as I say it was/is fine with the engine off. But when I started her up & pumped the brake pedal, that's when I noticed the really soft spongey feeling & the noise coming from the brake pedal. The noise is akin to that of a foot pump being used or a small escape of air, if that makes sense? I figured air must have gotten in to the system somewhere (don't remember it being like this before) so that's when I tired to bleed. Could I be wrong in thinking there's something wrong?

Thanks again guys, much appreciate your help. M.

[Mike]

Although people have bled them in the traditional way, many people seem to have problems. The recommended way (IIRC) is to use IDS and pressure bleed them.

I'm sure there'll be plenty of info tucked away on the forum.

[Fedupfatman]

Nice one. Thanks, Mike.

[oldtimer47]

hi all,
so what is a procedure to bleed the brakes that is easy and works, mine is a 2010 model, I dont know if the brake fluid has ever been changed, I dont have IDS, I did suck most of the fluid out of the master cylinder a while back and replace it with new fluid, but I would like to do it right to the callipers,
also how do I bleed the clutch slave cylinder without some fancy bit of FORD gear.
thanks, Oldtimer

[Marauder]

As you may of read my posts from a couple of weeks ago after having new brake pipes fitted on my 2008.2.2..The Garage bled brakes normal way No good,Pressure bled brakes a lot better, Then next bleed was with the Ford IDS method. Brake peddle now solid as a rock. One point though, Throughout all the bleeding methods if you sat with your foot on the brake peddle on tick over the peddle would slowly move down, The garage gave me a leathlet from Fords stating that on certain models the Brake peddle might move down a short way while holding pressure on the brake peddle at tick over.

[bigjohnthomas]

That's what mk7 brakes are like man
all is good perfect

[bigjohnthomas]

El toro

[mjsroofing]

If there is air in the system you would notice a problem when hill assist kicks in.

When I changed all my pads the rear ones took ages to adjust up. So I had a low pedal.
Then I purposely stop on hill so hill assist kick it a few times and job was a good un.

[karl]

Yep you will need diagnostic to bleed the system

The computer will do it all for you and activate the abs pump