rear brake bleed

hi I am bleed ing the brakes on my 89 gti cabby can i bleed the rears with the car jacked up or must it have weight on the axle?🤔

You can do it either way, I can usually scoot my body under the rear and get to it.

Do not forget that when you are bleeding the brakes the opposite front to the opposite rear to get a 0 air free line.

You can google "Home Made Power Bleeder" and make your own as it make bleeding the brakes relatively painless and a one person job.

If you are using a "Mity-Vac" then I suggest that you wrap the threads of the bleeders with Teflon tape to eliminate air from being sucked through the threads.

On new to me bleeders or wheel cylinders I wrap the whole bleeder including the pointy end with teflon tape then puncture the bleeder hole.  This way they will never rust seize in place.

thanks, great info , will try on floor but think way too low🙄

You don't have to worry about the car being off the ground on the cabriolet as there's a pressure regulator on the master cylinder, tin top cars need the car on the ground as they have a regulator attached to the rear beam which adjusts the pressure if you have more weight in the back.

ok thanks, that was confusing me.

bled back brakes fine, old skool way lol, chickened out of front brakes as bleed nipples would have snapped.

jasonf said

bled back brakes fine, old skool way lol, chickened out of front brakes as bleed nipples would have snapped.

That is one reason I usually re-build or replace the Calipers on my rides when they are new to me.  I take the bleeders out, and then wrap them in Teflon tape from threads to pointy ends and back, then poke a hole in the bleeder port.  They never get rust bound on me.

Bleeding half the brakes is good, but doing all 4 at once ensures that you have no air compression.  When I changed my rear wheel cylinder out the last time I couldn't believe the amount of air I got out of the fronts.


One way to get the bleeder ports out of the fronts is to Carefully soak them from the insides out with PB-Blaster, fill the port and let it work for a week.  I then remove the Caliper and tap the metal around the port to shock it, or apply heat and then try a pair of Vice-Grips to loosen, then worst case is that I have to Drill them out, but rebuild kits for the Calipers are only about 5 dollars each.  

Brakes are the second most safety feature of the car.
The way you drive and maintain it is the first.  Seat belts are the third….

Google making your own home made power bleeder, makes bleeding a joy….. or at least a 1 person job.  I also have used a Mity-Vac, but found the first time that I could pull air in to the system via the bleeder threads so that is when I started to wrap them in Teflon tape.

ok i will try to soak them with wd40 and try again next week.

WD wont touch them if they are that bad.
Track down some pb blaster and hit them once a day for a week before attempting

will try to find some then, cheers

found it in eBay, ordered.

There also have been some good things about ATF fluid and Acetone…. google it.

My Father used to swear by Kroil, and I have also found CRC Freeze-Off to work well.

I have heard that diesel works well too.

Get the wire bush out and give the nipples a good scrub then get soaking the threads with penetrating oil.

Lots of Diesel near your brake discs and shoes may not be a good idea.  

🤪 good thinking.