Looks like a nice product, except there seems to be some discussion about the Honda's reservoir. "Hondas use a locking cap, however, the reservoirs are very thin and when pressurized expand enough to cause leaks with every locking cap we have tried. Therefore both Hondas and Toyotas need to use the 1101 adapter." Apparently this 1101 adapter uses wing nuts, screws and chains.

 

It worked fine on my car, but I suppose if I cranked the pressure super high I could crack almost any reservoir eventually. I also made my own adapter so I wouldn't risk cracking the lip with a crummy aftermarket cap.

 

Impressed. So you made your own cap for pressurizing the reservoir. That would be beneficial to see and what you used.

 

There is a cutout, but I refill by hand. I just add fluid as I go along.

 

Mityvac has them, but I didn't see an adaptor for our car. I have that pump for refilling my manual transmission.

 

With the cold weather, I decided to give the Gravity Method a try in the garage. Basically sucked out half of the old brake fluid, and filled it up with new.

Used clear 3/8th tubing, Sli-Glyde around the brake bleeder and allowed it to drain into a bottle with some brake fluid in it where the tube was sitting in. {I added weight to the bottle so it would not fall over}. It took about a half hour for the fluid in the tube from the FL side to start coming out clear. The MC looks good with just new brake fluid. I have to do the other three brakes, but my 2.5 floor jack gave up. I couldn't lift the car up to remove the jack stand so I went out and bought another one. The old jack must be 40 years old. So tomorrow I hope to finish it. I will say, I was impressed. No bubbles, and I could poke-around and do other things in the garage, just making sure I added fluid as needed to the MC. Basically, followed howarejew's method above.

 

I pour some of the fluid into the reservoir and then smoosh the bottle to make it fit (this is a CR-V but same concept)

 

Finished. If I was expecting a major improvement, I am disappointed. :-) Braking feels about the same as before. Of course I just pulled it out of the garage and went through braking process in my driveway. Road test tonight maybe. I do doubt it will get any better than what I am experiencing now. Ironically, Monday I will have had the car 10 years exactly (62k miles on it). First time its brake fluid has been flushed.

I did find on the third brake I was getting some leaking around the tube. I cut a fresh end off and that stopped it. That will be part of my process going forward.

 

With all due respect . . . dude, really? You can't maintain a car for free. We are all trying to help you, but you gotta get real.

Tough love. It sucks, I know. I'll hate myself in the morning.

 

Going to try to give you the benefit of the doubt here and try not to take your comments negatively. Frankly, everyone here on this forum has been great.

Not even sure what your comments were in reference too. Nowhere was I suggesting I wanted to maintain my car for free. You quoted me twice.

First quote was simply that I had immediate time to work in the garage due to the snap cold weather which keeps me from having to do all the other projects / duties that come with home ownership and a family. Did the break bleeding after cleaning the 30 ft dryer vent and the refrigerator coils among other things, etc.

Second quote was just stating there was no significant change (probably a good thing). I have no idea how you could find that as a reason to think I don't want to spend money on my car. I had no issue with buying a third-party solution. Indeed, had prices bookmarked and even purchased a potential solution from HF which as I shared had its limitations. I went with the Gravity solution since it was intriguing and received a lot of favorable comments. It wasn't a cost factor if that is what you inferred.


Lastly, I appreciate all the positive comments and guides from everyone. Because others use these forums to search for their own solutions, I like to be as detailed as possible with my experience. We learn from each others successes and sometimes by our failures.

 

No harm meant.

The "gravity method" is not a method. You can either make it a two-man job and have someone pump the brakes, or you need to buy a brake bleeder tool. I just did my brakes and clutch. Both were operating fine before, but had much firmer pedal feel after.

Most of the people on this forum won't spend a nickel on their cars. That's just the reality. I'm a 'Freak. I love cars, and I love spending money on my car.

 

You might enjoy watching this YouTube video. I thought it was very good as he discussed at 10:12 different ways to bleed brakes. Specifically at 10:40, he specifically uses the word, "methods." LOL.


I cannot speak for other people, but forums like this one often are used to save money. Just had an in-person quote for $70 off for a rear drum brake job for my Honda Fit. (Noticed they need to replaced in the near future while doing the bleeding of my brakes). I was given a price with that discount already applied for $207. That did not include resurfacing the drums (mine are fine). I can pick up the shoes for around $50 and do them myself.

And it isn't just so we save money, just as important is we know it was done right. Just recently heard where a person had an oil change done, only thing that was changed, however, was the oil filter. They left the old oil in the car since they were too busy and backed up.

 

Hmm. It must be a "method" that doesn't work. Interesting. I give that a try next time.

I'm talking about people who are more interested in saving money than in cars, car ownership and car maintenance. When self-driving gets here, they will hop right in and never look back.

 

I use a 5$ little bottle kit that has a magnetic attachement. You can use the magnet to attach the bottle to a higher point since air bubbles will have a tendency to want to rise.

as mister coffee stated, if you remove the weather strip, there is a little trap door you can open above the master to pour right from above. Honda is nice like that. I use a medical syringe with clear tube to suck out as much fluid from the master as possible then fill it up with fresh fluid. I don’t bother pre filling the waste bottle like in the service manual since I run at least 50ml through there before the fluid looks clean and clear, I’ve never had the sucking air back in problem but it’s probably wise to do this technique if you are only bleeding air and not replacing the fluid. I bleed the brakes myself with no help and the hose will show if there is air in the lines. If I have a helper, I’ll ask them to do the final pumping so I can confirm there are no bubbles but like I said, if you run 50ml or more through there to get the dirty fluid out of the lines, there should be no issues with air.

the biggest trick I learned last year was to zap off the bleeders with an impact. It sounds crazy but works great. Since using that technique, i’ve never snapped a bleeder. Otherwise, I’ve snapped a bleeder on a few occasions with a precision broached 6 point bleeder wrench and it sucks big time, especially with the rear drums, the bleeders usually come all the way out and I just reinsert them. I’m not worried about letting air in since I’m bleeding anyway. I do use my lower powered compact impact driver. If I were to use big Bertha, I’d put her on the lowest torque setting.

 

Very good tips. Thanks for sharing them. I followed my same process two days later on my Nissan truck and the only problem I ran into was the rear bleeder leaking around the bleeder threads (even when I barely cranked it open). It's a 2012 so perhaps the threads were more worn out causing the leak.

I did bleed the entire lines all the way through on the Honda. I saw on one of the above videos where the person like you suggested to 'crack' those bleeder valves for the same reason you mentioned.

First time I really drove it yesterday and I actually did notice an improvement in the brakes. Next stop, this spring I do my rear drums. (I hate drum brakes. Envy every time I see someone with disc's on front and back). :-)

 

Drums are not so bad.

-get a drum hardware kit from rock auto or wherever. I try and reuse what I can but sometimes you can end up chowdering a spring so it’s good to have spares.
-if you live in a rusty area, fully coated rear drums are nice.
-they make specials tools for installing drum springs and dealing with the annoying retainer spring clips. Recommended.
-beware of accidentally pushing out the drum cylinder if you push the shoe hard on one side. Not a huge deal you can put it back in and bleed the line but don’t want to get dirt in there.
-be careful, one of the star adjusters is left hand threaded; they are not interchangeable left and right wheel side.
-once the new stuff is in, use the little access hole behind the drum to tighten the star adjuster. I pump the brake a few times to center the shoes and pull the hand brake one click. I aim for slight to no drag when off and super hard/impossible to turn at one hand brake click.

if you adjust your rear drums like me, your handbrake will be super tight and can hold on a hill with only two or three clicks. A common mistake is adjusting the rear drums too loose causing some people to go 50-100k miles with little to no brake shoe wear.

Also, if you don’t have molykote paste, it’s worth getting some to put on the sliding contacts between the shoes and the drum housing. That paste is also called for in caliper pad contact points and in the pad retainer clips. Expensive but worth it. I’ve never found an appropriate alternative.

 

Appreciate the tips again. Yes I have looked at RockAuto. I know some people complained that some of the brake shoes they purchased at their local parts stores the holes for the emergency brake where not milled right. Too small in some cases.

Molykote paste is that similar to SLI-Glyide mentioned earlier?

 

that’s happened happened to me once with brake shoes from Rockauto. Used a drill to slightly ream the hole and then it was fine. The last set of shoes I bought from rockauto were some el cheapo brand and they fit great.

molykote is molybdenum powder in oil. The oil is intended to evaporate leaving behind just the powder. It’s what you could call « dry lube ». It is nothing like SilGlyde which is nothing more than silicon grease. You shouldn’t use grease on brake clips because it will collect dirt and may foul things up even worse than not putting anything at all. If you live in a rust prone area, you have to put something on the clips or else they develop surface corrosion and tend to seize. If you live in California, putting nothing is probably just as good.

as far as inside the drum goes, a high temp grease might work but I suspect it could simply liquify when really hot and melt away. The service manual calls for grease on metal to metal contact of moving parts within the drum mechanism and molykote on the shoe contact points with the housing and the cylinder pistons. Anti seize might work better than grease if that’s all you have.

the video I posted shows a tech applying molykote at the 3:20 minute mark. Get ready to spend because a small jar will probably run you 50$ or so.

 

Not sure what the fuss is about but I used a CTA Tools 7030 cap along with ARES 70921-2 Liter pressure bleeder. The bleeder cap fits just fine in the cutout area by the plastic cowl with the insulation strip removed. The cap completely holds pressure with no leak.

I used to do pressure bleed but it takes quite a long time.

 

No magic to it. Just a 20 year old hand pump pressure blender and DOT3 fluid.