How to Bleed Brakes by Yourself? Easiest Way

Bleeding of brakes is an operation that needs to be performed at times to give the Vehicle’s brakes a kind of service that they need. If you are familiar with riding bikes, you must be aware of the most basic and conventional kind of braking operation. If we talk about the most basic kind of brake that is present on bicycles, it simply works by squeezing the brake pads against brake discs when a pedal pulls up a caliper together. This further leads to friction which stops the bicycle. Coming to automobiles’ brake systems, they are a bit complex in their operation. However, the basic principle of taking kinetic energy as an input and generating heat by friction causing the wheels to stop and bringing the vehicle to a stop remains the same. In the majority of vehicles, the function of stopping a vehicle is performed with the combined action of brake caliper, brake pads as well as brake rotors.

Why is the bleeding of brakes needed?

In order to ensure that your vehicle’s brakes are applying enough force to stop your vehicle on time, the bleeding of brakes is necessary. In cases, when something gets inside the hydraulic braking system of your vehicle, the amount of force that is applied by the brakes gets reduced. The efficient working of brakes requires a vacuum inside the master chamber along with the chambers that lead to each brake and wheel. If there is something that blocks the system’s ability to create a vacuum, the braking system of your vehicle resultantly becomes less efficient. In such cases bleeding of brakes becomes a necessity.

What exactly refers to the bleeding of brakes?

Bleeding of brakes means emptying up the contents that are present in the master chamber and then replacing whatever is inside with the use of pure brake fluid. When you do the bleeding of your brakes, it allows the braking system of your vehicle to create a vacuum and it applies the brakes with a suitable amount of force that can slow down your vehicle and ultimately stop it.

Generally, bleeding of brakes is done by technicians and professionals. But if you want to get it done all by yourself, it will surely prove to be a cheaper alternative available for you. Moreover, the bleeding of brakes is not very difficult. But at the same time, you should ensure that air and other substances do not enter the brake system of your vehicle. It can adversely impact your entire braking system.

How to bleed your brakes all by yourself?

If you want to bleed your brakes all by yourself, you will be needing the following apparatus:-

• A wrench or a combination wrench that can get easily fitted into the bleeder nozzle of your vehicle.
• A new can containing proper brake fluids which can be used to replace the older brake fluid.

Once you are ready with the above-mentioned things, you are good to start bleeding your vehicle’s brakes by following these steps:-

1. Jack up your vehicle to get a better view and find the bleeder screws. Then, look out for a nozzle that is little in size and is located behind the brakes. This nozzle is known as the brake bleeder nozzle.
2. Now with the use of a combination wrench loosen up those screws. You must loosen the screw by applying more power as it can get your screw damaged. If needed, you can even use a Penetrant including WD-40 to loosen up the screws. Once the screw gets loosened up, you are required to retighten it.
3. Now fill a glass jar with brake fluid. Afterward, put one end of the screw at the nozzle and its other end inside the jar. You should put the jar right under the hose in order to ensure that the fluid does not drip to the ground.
4. You should make sure that you do not loosen the screw along with releasing the brakes at the same time. If you do that, it will suck air into it. In such cases, you should have an assistant or helper to sit inside the vehicle and keep the brakes pressed. You should tell him/her accordingly when he/she needs to release the brake pedal.
5. Pressing of brake pedal lets you know whether there is a presence of any amount of air that is trapped inside the fluid and it will make the air come out. You can see this air coming out in the form of air bubbles. You can easily spot them in the hose suction method. They can be spotted otherwise too.
6. After that, you must ensure that you keep the pedal of the brake pressed before retightening the screw. At times, it happens that all the air does not get removed in the first attempt. In such cases, you need to repeat this process more than once.
7. Now you must add more amount of brake fluid into the master cylinder till the fluid reaches the level of the marked line. You can bleed the master cylinder at the point at which the cylinder is attached to the brake lines. You can even bleed the master cylinder from the master cylinder’s bleeder nozzle if you are able to find up any.
8. The next step involves repeating the above-mentioned steps with all the brakes.
9. After the bleeding of all the brakes has been finished by you, you are required to take your car to a test drive just to ensure that your brakes are working fine with efficiency. After the bleeding of brakes, your brakes should not give you a spongy feel. If your vehicle is still experiencing the same complication you can get your master cylinder refilled and ensure that the fluid is in the right proportion. In such cases, you can choose to go for bleeding the brakes again.

Final word

We expect that the above-mentioned steps would have surely provided you with a detailed and descriptive idea about the process of bleeding the brakes. Although it is a simple process, at the same time it requires you to be extremely careful while doing it. If you have any further queries about the bleeding of brakes you can let us know about them in the comments section. We will be providing you with answers and solutions. Do provide us honest feedback on this article. Your feedback is highly appreciated by us. Thanks for reading.