Well, I bled my brakes on the cruiser for the first time using my Motive Products Power Bleeder (PB). Some impressions:
1. I've bled brakes on two other vehicles using the PB and although all the results were the same, I felt much more comfortable using the PB on these other vehicles because the brake fluid reservoirs were designed for screw on plastic caps as opposed to the squeezed on rubber 'hat' that the cruisers and runners and minis use. The reason I was more comfortable was that with the screw on cap there is no force applied to the plastic reservoir piece. With the PB's "Universal" fitting, it seemed like there was a lot of downward force applied to the reservoir. When I first fit the universal fitting, I tightened the wing nuts slightly and tested the seal by pumping the recommended 10psi with a dry PB chamber. After developing less than 6psi, the cap popped off. Tightened some more, 8psi, the cap popped off. Tightened some more, 10psi but at this point I saw that the plastic reservoir piece was somewhat squated and that was a worrying thing to me.
2. I wonder what pressure would work best for the bleeding process; I tried to bleed with 10psi thinking that since the seal on the cap stood the 10psi dry test, it would hold for the actual bleeding, and it did, but, at 10psi there is not enough pressure to force the fluid out of the system at the bleeder screws. So I went to 15psi and it worked but worked slowly! Then I went to 18psi and it worked and worked relatively rapidly. I was not able to find any facts from factory service manual on what the recommended and/or max pressure would be, I hope I did not exceed it but anything lower than 15 is such a pain in the posterior to work through.
3. Once everything was set just so, I quickly flushed over two quarts of fresh synthetic fluid through the system! With the pressure method, there is almost no worry whatsoever about air entering the system. Even if a bleeder screw is opened so much that it starts to spread the fluid past the threads, there is no introduction of air. In fact, in my case, I really screwed up one of the bleeder screws and attempted to replace it with a speedbleeder that I got at the store. Although the speed bleeder was the correct M10x1.0, it was not long enough and so even when seated fully, it would still allow fluid through when the brakes were touched. So I had to then again remove and replace two bleeder screws. In this case, lowering the pressure to about 10psi was enough to have a small amount of fluid constantly come out of the open bleeder screw socket and so even while screwing in the other screw, still no air introduction into the system. Still, this is why the second quart of fluid was flushed through - just to make sure - safety first.
After all the process was finished and tested, I would have to say that the results are wonderful with the PB. It makes the method a one man job. It makes the method much more fool proof. And, since its so simple to flush the fluid, you can really flush til the stuff comes out clean clean clean. Another advantage is that with the old assistant pedal pump method, the seals are pushed into areas that they normally do not travel through and I have heard that this can cause damage to them. Not sure but in any case, with the PB, the seals are still and so no chance for damage to them. I just wish that the reservoir used a screw on cap, that would take the worry right out of the equation. Anyways, hope this helps someone considering the PB! For those going to Moab, first I'm jealous, and second, safe wheelin!!!
