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From time to time the brakes in a VW need to be bled.  This can be an easy job or you can do it the hard way which can lead to patchy baldness where you pull your hair out.  If you read on, I'll share with you what I have learned over the years about doing the job on the old air-cooled Volkswagens.

I used to have to find a friend to help out.  They would get the easy job sitting in the drivers seat pumping the brake pedal while I'd call out the orders, "OK, pump it up.  Hold it.  Is the pedal down?  OK, Pump it up.  How does it feel now?" and so on.

After a while, I had come to rely on tools more than friends.  Enter the brake bleeder:

Brake Bleeder 1

Now this little beauty looks like it would do the job quite well but, in reality, is truly just a big waste of money.  It's made entirely of the cheapest Chinese materials available and is designed to sell, not to actually work.  The first time I went to use it. the e-ring at the back of the plunger shot across my garage never to be seen again and the red hose soon cracked as bad as any I have ever seen...in places, just from being slightly bent.

Cracked Hose

Then I wasted my money on this unit:

Brake Bleeder 3

This thing is not at all big enough.  The magnet isn't up to the job either and lets go just from the force of the hose bending especially on a cold day when the vinyl hose is stiffer.  Also, the magnet is held on (sort of) by the little black thing you can see being pushed into a hole in the cap.  Well, the black thing is a little too small or the hole is a little too big because it almost falls off.  Both of the above come from a rather well known tool store with the initials HF that sells mostly Chinese, er, stuff.

There are many others available of varying price and quality like these for example:

Brake Bleeder 2 Brake Bleeder 4
Brake Bleeder 6 Brake Bleeder 5

There, now doesn't that just look so easy and almost even fun?

Brake Bleeder 7

Just sitting around casually bleeding the brakes with nice clean hands and your favorite shirt on.  Yeah, right!  If you've ever done this before you know to wear nitrile gloves, grubby clothes and maybe even safety glasses.

So here is where it gets good.  I made my own bleeder tool that actually works and costs very little.  I used a master cylinder cap, an old tire valve and an o-ring to come up with this:

Pressure Cap 1 Pressure Cap 1

Now, this works really well and the net cost was zero!  It was made entirely of junk I had laying around so I also got to feel good about my recycling effort.  Just remember DO NOT use an air compressor.  I think you can figure out why.  All that's needed is s pump or two from a bicycle pump, then go open up one of the bleeder valves and keep an eye on the reservoirs fluid level.  No more need for clumsy gadgets or clumsy helpers.

Ironically, this thing just sits in the 4th drawer up of my tool box now since I discovered the easy way of bleeding the brake system.  This may even work on other makes, models and years too.  Now days, I just open up all four bleeder valves and go eat dinner.  When I come back, I close all the bleeder valves and all is as it should be provided I didn't go out to dinner or take a nap and leave the valves open for so long that the reservoir is completely drained.  If you think about it, the difference in elevation between the reservoir and the bleeder valve, the size of the bleeder hole and the viscosity of the brake fluid will all act together to slowly bleed the system if the bleeder valves are left open.  The air will naturally evacuate since the valves are intelligently located on the tops of the slave cylinders.

So now you know the secret.  Give it a try.  What have you got to loose?  Just remember to keep an eye on the reservoir fluid level and enjoy the "easy way".

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