Saturday 16 February 2013

Brake bleeding

I picked up a Gunson EEZIBLEED kit to help setup the brakes. It uses air pressure from a spare tyre to pressurise the reservoir and push the brake fluid through the pipes.

The reservoir has had some fluid in it for a couple of days and master cylinder take offs tightened to remove any obvious leaks.

On the Zero the rear callipers are installed upside down from their original design to allow correct routing of the hand brake lines. They have to be removed to bleed the brake circuit with the bleed nipple at the highest point to avoid air locks.

This is my jury rig propping the bleed nipple to the top and bracing the brake pads with an off-cut of wood to avoid any chance of the piston pushing out. I prepared both sides in the same way:

The EEZIBLEED bottle is primed with brake fluid as was the reservoir then the black line is connected to a tyre (20psi max) to pressurise the system:

Then its just a process of losening each calliper's bleed nipple until the fluid runs clear without air bubbles. The front's are easier & can be simply bled in situ. Very straightforward process, good piece of kit.

My last job is to re install the rear callipers; My original bolts were around 40mm, cut down from 50mm bolts; I prepared some new ones more like 43mm long, to be installed with lock washers & thread lock:

The acid test will be when I have the calipers back on & try reversing the car under its own power into the drive..

Update - those split washers came off for plain washers - split washers are worse than useless.