Brake bleeding
 

So I am going to replace my master cylinder and put on my stainless steel brake lines and while I am at it I will replace all the brake fluid. So my question is what is the best tool to use to bleed and flush the system or is the 2 man tag team still the best way.

You could invest in some speed bleeders. That seems to be an easy method. There are all sorts of one man brake bleed kits available. I've got a manual operated vacuum pump I use to just pull the fluid through the lines. It's much easier and less stressful than trying to explain to the better half how to push down on the pedal and then not let off until I close the bleeder.

I love my Mytivac but it does require a air compressor.

I have 3 air compressors. Should I bench bleed the master cylinder?

Every time I have replaced a master I have bench bleed them, however never done one on my truck yet. When I did my flush I used dot 4 fluid though ATE Blue from the specs I read it has one of the best boil points and lowest rates of water absorption. The factory ford has pretty good specs though.

Yes.

FYI Motorcraft Dot 3 Brake Fluid is going for around $4.75 per 12oz bottle. I picked up 5 bottles to flush my brake system the other week.

I use a Motive Products Power Bleeder. It hooks up to the master cylinder resovouir, pressurizes the syatem and forces the new brake fluid through the lines. All you have to do is crack the bleeder at each caliper until the air is gone.

Gravity bleeding is my choice. Cheap and easy. Only takes time.

Do a search and you'll find many posts on this topic. Used to be one showing how to build your own bleeder out of a garden sprayer. What I did was epoxy a a Schrader valve (tire valve) through a hole I drilled into the master cylinder cap. I then attached a clip-on tire inflator with about 5 lbs. of air pressure to it. Than all I have to do is open each wheel's bleeder valve 'until the fluid flows clear and fresh. After each wheel, replenish the fluid level in the master cyl reservoir making sure it never runs too low. Attaching a 1/4 inch hose to the bleeder valves, and collecting the fluid into a glass Mason jar allowed me to see when the fluid turned fresh.

This is a rather primitive, yet cheap and effective way to bleed and flush the system single-handedly. PM me if you have questions.

I think air-pressure bleeding is the way to go - having done it a few times with my SD and my Cougar, it's easy, fast, and doesn't leave much room for error.

HOWEVER - since you are replacing something BEFORE the ABS system, you are going to be in for a peck of trouble. Bleeding the ABS system requires a diagnostics setup to exercise each valve in the ABS system to get all the air out of it. BUT - if you do all the work, and do NOT turn the key to ON (where the ABS system will initialize itself) and get air in valves/accumulators, you should be able to do this without it.

--

I took a hose barb with a nut on it, epoxied it to a hole in a spare master cylinder cap, and using 25 lbs of air through a regulator, air-pressure bleeding is a snap. Just be careful to not let the master cylinder empty. I can completely bleed any wheel and not empty the master cylinder. Just don't try to do two or more ;)

Wow. How fast does the fluid move when you put 25 psi in there? I've never seen more than 5 - 7 psi used. 25 psi sounds like it doesn't leave any time to drink a beer while bleeding the brakes.

I have had the ABS module bled before I think that what it's called. The dealership did it for me, took 5 minutes, so that doesn't worry me.
Thanks to all for the help.

There is easy way to build a power bleeder using spare tire. Truck tire is big, but I build one with car tire. Took me $2 parts from junk yard. Extra MC cap and tubing from old VW that was using spare tire pressure for windshield fluid. No need for extra tank as MC tank is about double capacity of the system.
ABS will not flush without dealers computer, but no flush is perfect so I am OK replacing about 70% of the fluid.

Still very slowly, actually. I started with 15, but eventually went up to 25.

I put a hose on the bleeder, put the other end of the hose in a coffee can, open the bleeder and wait for no more air, or if flushing the system for clean brake fluid to come out. Doesn't take long, maybe a minute tops.

I found if I went to a lower pressure, the air liked to stay in the hose near the top of the bend. I figured if it was staying in that hose, there was a possibility of it staying somewhere else in the system.

X2 on the motive pump bleeder. Only thing that works better is the SnapOn Power bleeder.