With a Motive bleeder, fill bleeder with brake fluid (about a quart), fit bleeder on reservoir, pressurize to 20 (psi?), open the bleed valves and let fluid flow until new fluid comes out. Tip bleeder so the suction tube is not in brake fluid, release pressure, hopefully excess fluid is siphoned from the reseroir (doesn't always happen), remove bleeder, trim reservoir level.

There are seals in the reservoir that might be old and leak when the reservoir is pressurized. Do some research on preventive replacement of the seals.

Sixto
95 S420
87 300SDL

the Motive pressure bleeder is a god send. I will never go back to the old style bleeding.

I was trying hard as hell to bleed the clutch on my Lesharo last week. Nothing would work. Not pumping the pedal, not the Mity Vac. I bought a Motive bleeder off ebay and it did the job in about 10 seconds.

Bonus, most all European cars are the same. So it will work on my 944 and 300TD as well.

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1987 300TDT
1981 VW MKI Caddy 1.6 diesel, waiting on engine swap
1983 D-50 Power Ram 4x4 "Mitsubishi" 2.3 turbo diesel
assorted gas powered crap and motorcycles

RIP: 1984 300TDT, 1982 300TDT, 1984 190D 2.2, 1992 300D 2.5, 1987 300TDT, 1982 Maxima LD28, 1983 Maxima LD28, Isuzu C223 P'ups X3, 1983 Holiday Rambler 6.2 Banks turbo diesel, 1984 Winnebago LeSharo 2.1 TD, 1985 Allegro 6.5

Yes I do use low pressure, but its for the reservoir. The rest of the brake system can handle high pressure.

Steve, its not a big deal if you have one of the pressure bleeders. Basically they connect up to the m/c and add a little pressure to the system. Then you can go around to all the wheels and crack the bleeders one at a time and draw off the old fluid and allow the new fluid to enter the system from the m/c. My easibleed system just pressurizes the m/c with 20 psi from an old tire, so I need to add fluid during this process. The motive system can add the fluid to the m/c during this process, AFAIK, so it is even faster.

I typically draw about 8 oz. from each rear wheel and 6 oz. from each front wheel and that's about it. You're done, provided you did not run the m/c out of fluid during this process. In that case:

Thanks guys! I had been a little hesitant after having read a chapter on this subject in I think was the 124 Bible some time ago as it described different proceedures I had not been familiar with.

Sounds like synthetic brake fluid is the stuff to use! I'll check around for a pressure bleeder, I cant imagine they could be too expensive, if they are, I'll build one!

Steve......................

The Overview:
In the past the typical way of changing the brake fluid was to have one person slowly pump the brake pedal a couple of times.......and WHILE HOLDING THE PRESSURE ON THE BRAKE PEDAL the other person would go to the brake bleeder fittings on the inside of the calipers or pistons and loosen it .... some fluid would typically squirt out..... the person inside holding the brake pedal would say " down" ....and the person under the car would tighten the fitting... IT WAS IMPORTANT THAT THE BRAKE PEDAL WAS NOT RELEASED BEFORE THE FITTING WAS TIGHTENED EACH TIME...... so that air would not be sucked into the system....
It was also important to keep checking the brake Master Cylinder resevour so it did not get low.
So it would be " pump pump pump, loosen, pedal would go towards the floor, call out 'down' ,tighten, then the pump pump pump would repeat.
This would happen until all clear fluid and no bubbles came out of each fitting. It is best to start at the fitting farthest ( by the actual travel route of the brake lines ) fitting from the Master Cylinder. This is usually the Right Rear...but does not have to be depending on the car manufacturer. This procedure does the most evaucation with the least amount of fluid and insures dirty fluid does not move back and forth in the system and wind up not being evacuated.
But if you have the pressure system you take away several of these hassles.. only you are necessary to do it .... place the pressure cap on the MC instead of it's original cap, pump up the air pressure BEHIND the brake fluid in the container... and you have both the pressure mechanism formerly provided by the pumping person....and you take away the need to watch for a low level of fluid in the MC.....
Go around to each bleeder, let out enough to eliminate dirty fluid and bubbles... and tighten.... and go the next closest to the MC.... four fittings and you can take the power bleeder off your car....

What a PIA. I'd never do that job again without the pressure bleeder. And, who would I borrow to be the second person?

Who would I borrow ? I am out in the country.....
There is a road about 2 miles from me named " Monkey Road" because the people at that corner had a pet monkey... kept outside...
Unfortunately he learned to turn on the water faucet.... and would go to other people's houses and do that... did I mention he did not bother learning to turn it OFF ?
I was glad they lived that far off....LOL

Well Greg, then you are stuck. You will have to break down and buy that pressure bleeder.

Unless, of course, you could train the monkey to step on the brake pedal for you.

I too live WAY out in the boonies and Murphy's law ensures that there is never another human being around when I need to bleed or flush brakes. I thought about training my bird dog to do it. Although she's smart enough to point and flush quail, I don't think she's quite up to the intelligence level I need for brake bleeding.

I have a Motive Bleeder and find it quite handy for flushing, but I'm not looking forward to the day when I need to bleed a system that has been opened. For that job, I will have to either train the bird dog or wait until my wife or daughter are around (both of them experienced at the task. That way I will be working with a lot more than 20PSI.

The two person method is not rocket science. I was operating the pedal side of this operation when I was six with my dead on the wrench side of the operation. I would like to think that even at the age of six, I had more intelligence than my bird dog, but I'm sure there are those who will differ.

Have a great day,

Hey Larry, that is my earliest memory of helping my dad at his shop. I used to think it was great fun to get to ride in the car on the lift while he was underneath opening the bleeder screws.

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Keep everything as simple as possible-but no simpler--Albert Einstein

Hello gang. I've been getting ready to do a flush on my E300D '97 and reading this thread. So I ordered the Motive Euro unit for $45. Prelim. testing and there was a leak around the pressure gauge connection that I could not resolve with tightening it (found that it was loose). When I took it apart, I found that there was a drill plug between the inside nut and the wall. When they drilled the hole, the resultant piece of plastic had remained attached at one inner edge of the hole. Then when they slipped the nut over the threads from the guage shaft, they did not see it and it did not seal. Bottom line is poor quality control and not tested after construction. I only mention this to you guys so you will check the unit well before using. It was a pain in the butt to get it back together (small opening, large hands), and get it snug. I used a small amount of orange gasket silicon on the outside. Otherwise works ok now. BTW is 20lb ok to use or will it work with 15?

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hlg

How does the Motive bleeder feed brake fluid into the master cylinder? Do you just invert the bottle? If so doesn't it make a hell of a mess when you disconnect and relieve the pressure in the bottle? It also seems like the master cylinder would be filled right to the brim... What am I missing?

I have a homemade pressure bleeder and it works very well but I have to relieve the pressure in order to re-fill the master cylinder.

I did the MityVac thing one time, and while it worked it was not optimum because you are likely to get air bubbles coming in by the loose threads of the bleeder nipple.

The Motive Power Bleeder is much better and so much quicker. Its feeding tube extends down from the screw-on cap to the bottom of the tank, so it picks up a supply of fluid to feed into the master cylinder to replace what goes into the brake system. I get good results at 10 PSI.

I also found it quite useful to flush the manual clutch system on the 4-speed 240D. On that one you have to flow fluid UPHILL from the slave cylinder on the transmission, up through the master cylinder at the clutch pedal, to the tube on the brake fluid reservoir. I pulled that tube off and routed to a catch bucket to avoid contaminating the fresh fluid in the brake reservoir. Well, OK - what I actually did first by mistake was lose all the dirty fluid out the bottom - but now I think that was perhaps a better flush.

Probably most of these diesels you pick up have not had their fluid changed properly. So, their brake calipers start rusting. When you get the system all flushed properly and repeat every two years, that will all stop.

Ken300D

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1982 300D at 351K miles
1984 300SD at 217K miles
1987 300D at 370K miles

Thanks Ken. Will try 10 lbs first. As you described, the air in the master cylinder resevoir stays there and the pressure in the Motive pushes fluid into the resevoir as it displaces it into the system. When finished, to keep the air level the same, you have to tilt the Motive so that the pick up tube on the bottom is exposed to the air in the Motive, while you relieve the pressure at the Motive pump valve. This keeps the reservoir from getting more fluid during the process of unpressuring. (empties the tube). Gonna do it next week and will report any surprises. Note: It is a good idea to get a bottle of denatured alcohol at the drug store and use it to flush the Motive and tubes after you dispose of the left over brake fluid. That will avoid corrosion of any parts etc.

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hlg