Haynes manual brake bleeding

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Harrris303

Active Member
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Hi everyone, I tried to bleed my brakes yesterday (S3 swb) using what I thought was the recognised method of starting furthest away from the master cylinder and working your way closer. I've ended up with the age-old problem of a spongy pedal that needs pumping to get firm.

Having checked my haynes manual I find that it says the correct sequence is Front left, front right, rear left, rear right. This seems kind of strange to me but maybe I'm missing something.

Could that be part of my problem or should i start thinking more drastically?

(Ps. the one thing I have tried is adjusting the brakes properly and it didn't make any difference).

Thanks in advance.
 
that would be for dual system where one part of cylinder feeds rears other part fronts ,but as long as you get reasonable flow of fluid out doesnt really matter what order is ,clamping the different flexis can indicate were air is ,fronts can be hard as nipple is on lower cylinder (air wanting to rise ) excessive shoe travel will give poor pedal
 
The land rover manual says slacken off the adjusters fully then bleed farthest to nearest. Never been a fan of Haynes manuals.
 
Unfortunately can't clamp rear hose because it's got a kind of long metal spring round the outside that could damage the rubber (not sure what the purpose is). I did read somewhere about stopping the outlets from the master cylinder with bleed screws as a way of trying to isolate the problem. I guess that's kind of the same idea.

I didn't fully slacken the adjusters first so that might be worth a try.

Yeah the front bleed nipples are on the bottom so maybe that's it. Not sure what to do about that. (short of reversing gravity...)

Thanks for the propmpt replies.
 
The only way i find to bleed the front brakes is to remove the bake plates and hang them upside down off the with a bungy that makes the bleed nipple at the top.
 
I presume from the single rear brake hose that it's likely to be the non servo version with single wheel cylinders. If so the bleed nipples should be on the top - swap the pipes and nipples over or you'll never get the air out.
 
It has got a servo, and the front brakes are the type with two wheel cylinders each, one top and one bottom.
I'm wondering if maybe I could stick something on top of the fluid reservoir (kind of like a funnel) so that I could get loads of fluid in at once, then I could have someone pump it through fairly hard and fast to get the air out (not giving it time to float to the top inside) and close the nipple before it gets back in.
 
funnel wouldnt work but you could hose clip a hose or something to it to expand fluid capacity,you can try pushing fluid up through bleed nipple with syringe or squeezy bottle.you can try bleeding at top cylinder by slackening union on transfer pipe pressing pedal and tightening union before letting pedal up and repeating till air out,or leaving inlet pipe on top clyinder slighlty loose for a few hours,check all cylinders arent leaking behind rubber cover as wll suck air in on pedal return
 
Go to machine mart and get a brake bleeding kit. Its about 16 quid. Runs off of tyre air pressure. Done a disco in about 15 mins on my own with one of these
 
I don't have servo brakes but the parts book clearly shows both types of slave cylinder with the bleed nipple to the top - looks like someone's put your brake pipes/nipples the wrong way round.

I've used the self bleed kit for a Fiesta once that simply wouldn't self prime - they really do work!
 
how can that work ,single cylinder two holes 1 pipe in 1 bleed nipple ,twin cylinder top one two holes 1 pipe in 1 pipe round to other cylinder ,bottom cylinder 1 pipe in 1 bleed nipple
 
Jamesmartin, is there any chance you could elaborate on what you said about bleeding at the top cylinder? Sounds like a good idea but I'm not fully clear how you mean to do it.
Cheers.
 
slacken transfer pipe opposite to one from chassis press pedal hold ,tighten pipe let pedal up then repeat,only slacken enough for it to seep out
 
I thought the twin cylinder brakes were fore and aft, not top and bottom? In on lower, out on upper, in on lower, nipple on upper.
 
Cheers for that. I haven't got anyone to help tonight so I'll have to wait. I'll let you know how I get on.
 
jdandcoke said:
Go to machine mart and get a brake bleeding kit. Its about 16 quid. Runs off of tyre air pressure. Done a disco in about 15 mins on my own with one of these
Click to expand...

I tried this on my series and it just made brake fluid ouze out the top of the reservoir (made sure the tyre pressure was low enough first, etc.)

I found with my Series that half the issue was the adjusters and checking them and getting them perfect resolved a lot of the issues.
 
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