Trouble bleeding LSPV

[jdsti]

I bled the calipers all the way around. I wasn't aware there was an LSPV to bleed last. I drove home (2 miles) then bled the LSPV. I just spent an hour and over a liter of brake fluid trying to bleed the LSPV and it's still spitting air out pretty badly. I gave up as the air did not improve after the amount of fluid I ran through there.

Should I get a power bleeder? Should I start over with bleeding the calipers and then the LSPV again? Please help. This is my wife's DD and the pedal is mush.

 

[turbocruiser]

I would start over and bleed all of them once again. Do right rear, left rear, right front, left front and THEN the LSPV. You don't need a power bleeder, in fact I have one and don't use it as long as the wifey is within shoutin distance! I really think that you get much better results with the tried and the true method of pumping the pedal, holding it hard, opening the bleeder, closing the bleeder before you let the pedal up even one fraction of an inch and repeating till all the air is pushed out. HTH.

 

[Brian894X4]

Ah yes, the wonderful 80 series joy of bleeding these god forsaken brakes! Some engineer somewhere in Japan is laughing his ass off right now at the dozens and dozens of posts about what a bitch these things are to bleed compared to almost every other vehicle on earth.

Get a powerbleeder. It will make a huge difference. Otherwise you will empty out the auto parts start of brake fluid like I did, doing it the old way. If you're using a vacuum bleeder, I found these to be garbage. After reading a dozen times on here that the powerbleeder was the way to go and having to learn the hard way, I finally bought one. It worked pretty good.

Trust me, by the time I was done, I had the cleanest braking system around.

Good luck.

 

[turbocruiser]

Ah yes, the wonderful 80 series joy of bleeding these god forsaken brakes! Some engineer somewhere in Japan is laughing his ass off right now at the dozens and dozens of posts about what a bitch these things are to bleed compared to almost every other vehicle on earth.

Get a powerbleeder. It will make a huge difference. Otherwise you will empty out the auto parts start of brake fluid like I did, doing it the old way. If you're using a vacuum bleeder, I found these to be garbage. After reading a dozen times on here that the powerbleeder was the way to go and having to learn the hard way, I finally bought one. It worked pretty good.

Trust me, by the time I was done, I had the cleanest braking system around.

Good luck.

Hmmm, I really don't think they're any harder to bleed than any other vehicle and technically you tend to use much more fluid w/ the power bleeder than with the pedal bleeder (wife or friend); with the pedal technique you can use the tremendous pressure within the system (pushing hard while holding pedal) to push the air into one same spot (usually close to the bleeder or at the top of one line somewhere) and then it is all evacuated easily almost all at once. The power bleeders put only about 10 to 15 psi on the system so it is necessary to force the fluid out from the reservoir all the way to the bleeder and that takes more fluid most of the time. That plus the fact that the 80's don't have screw tight tops on their reservoirs means you have to use the universal adapter for the power bleeder and that really puts a lot of force on the reservoir - my reservoir actually deflects down slightly from the force of the universal adapter and I don't like that either. In fact if someone here wants to buy the Motive Products Power Bleeder I have, I'll sell it for a song. Anyways, to each his own but both techniques work. Now, one thing that I prefer the power bleeder for is flushing really rapidly; if you are trying to flush the system as opposed to simply bleeding the system the power bleeder is wonderful but obviously flushing the system takes the most fluid. HTH.

 

[619TOY]

I have a big power bleeder now and I really like it (it works off of vacuum rather than positive pressure though). With mine there is no pressure on the reservoir or anything else. It just sucks fluid through the system. I just set it and forget it (sort of) while I'm doing something else. Before that I used a mason jar, a shop vac and some tubing. That worked perfect but l had to keep a closer eye on it so it didn't get overfilled.
When using any power bleeder you should really grease around the threads of the nipple so you arent sucking air past the threads, giving you "false" air bubbles.

 

[Brian894X4]

Hmmm, I really don't think they're any harder to bleed than any other vehicle and technically you tend to use much more fluid w/ the power bleeder than with the pedal bleeder (wife or friend); with the pedal technique you can use the tremendous pressure within the system (pushing hard while holding pedal) to push the air into one same spot (usually close to the bleeder or at the top of one line somewhere) and then it is all evacuated easily almost all at once. The power bleeders put only about 10 to 15 psi on the system so it is necessary to force the fluid out from the reservoir all the way to the bleeder and that takes more fluid most of the time. That plus the fact that the 80's don't have screw tight tops on their reservoirs means you have to use the universal adapter for the power bleeder and that really puts a lot of force on the reservoir - my reservoir actually deflects down slightly from the force of the universal adapter and I don't like that either. In fact if someone here wants to buy the Motive Products Power Bleeder I have, I'll sell it for a song. Anyways, to each his own but both techniques work. Now, one thing that I prefer the power bleeder for is flushing really rapidly; if you are trying to flush the system as opposed to simply bleeding the system the power bleeder is wonderful but obviously flushing the system takes the most fluid. HTH.

I guess it depends on whether or not your system ever really got contaminated with a lot air. In my personal experience and from reading numerous posts and even a few emails sent my way from others, the problem occures when some universal brake shop does brake work. They always seem to allow a ton of air to get in and can never get it right, thus the owner is left with a mushy pedal. The source of the problem could a brake job serveral years old, like my case, with the PO.

If your rig was properly maintained than bleeding is probably easy. But once a lot of air gets into the system, it seems to be a bigger problem than on other rigs and the standard method doesn't seem to work.

Other sources of the mush are non-OEM parts. I've never experienced a problem with non-OEM parts on other rigs, but for some odd reason these Land Cruisers are super sensative to pads and calipers than are not exactly OEM spec. From talking to a dealer mechanic, he told me that a lot of aftermarket calipers have wider passageways which could contribute to the mush from having to move more fluid than normal for the same braking action. I dont know if that's true or not, but I do know that changing from a set of nearly new aftermarket pads to brand new stock OEM pads made a huge difference in brake feel.