Brake bleeding

[jestal]

There are a couple of items that you can make/obtain rather easily that make bleeding the brakes/clutch/whatever very easy and fast and thorough.

If you check with some of the auto parts stores and/or your local "pick your part" salvage yard you can find a 12 volt vacuum pump from a 1985-87 Cadillac Deville. Some of the hot rod retrofit brake vendors also sell them as well for boosting vacuum to the brake system. Not that expensive, especially if you can score one in a scrap yard, and an excellent source of continous vacuum that alligator clips to the bikes battery. Beats pumping a MightVac....

Take a large glass jar with a screw on metal top. Make a trap out of it by putting two bulkhead fittings thru the lid for vacuum lines. The bigger the jar the better IMO so it can easily hold a quart of brake fluid. I found the most durable way to put a tap in the lid is to use a barbed brass vacuum fitting with 1/8 pipe threads. Drill a hole in the lid, sandwich the lid with a couple of large washers and screw the pipe treads into a 1/8 pipe coupling to turn it into a bulkhead fitting thru the lid. A little RTV will seal the joint up permanently.

With these two items and several feet of vacuum hose you can be a master brake bleeder. You can hardly pour the brake fluid in fast enough....LOL. Route the vacuum from the pump to one of the taps on the jar. Route the other tap on the jar to the bleeder valve and crack it open slightly.

 

[radman]

Found a pic finally, the truth revealed!!!!!!!!

JESTAL

 

[jestal]

Naw....I am far squidlier than that......LOL....but thanks anyway.

 

[Toecutter]

If you check with some of the auto parts stores and/or your local "pick your part" salvage yard you can find a 12 volt vacuum pump from a 1985-87 Cadillac Deville.

So, what does one of those look like and where is it located on the car? BTW, good idea!

 

[radman]

This is the 82 Cimmaron one, but they are all pretty similar.

Many were gear driven via the engine, and mounted where the distributor used to reside.

 

[jestal]

Yep, that is the animal you are looking for. It is under the right front corner of the car on a deville. It mounts off the engine cradle on the far right front corner. There were engine driven vacuum pumps on some cars and all the car diesels but then you need something to drive it, so those don't work very well.

 

[Geezer]

Those things really suck... Sorry, I couldn't resist. Now I gotta go find me one. I scrapped an old Cadillac a couple of years ago. Knew I would need something off of it once it was gone.