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brake flush/bleeding frustration (long)
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Posted by Graham [Email] (more from Graham) on Mon, 10 Oct 2005 20:19:19 Share Post by Email
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This involves a 1993 9000 CS Turbo, auto, about 100k miles.

I'm going through the car thoroughly so my daughter, a new driver, can use it, and I decided it would be a good idea to flush the brake fluid.

So, per the Haynes manual, I started by bleeding the front calipers. I did screw up initially by letting the level of the old brake fluid get too low, so some air got in, but I just kept flushing until the front calipers were putting out clean fluid with no bubbles. (I was doing this the old-fashioned way -- one person operates brake pedal while the other opens and closes the bleeder.)

Then the first piece of weirdness: after doing this for a while, I wasn't getting any resistance from the pedal at all -- it was like the seals in the master cylinder had failed. So I took a break, and when I went back to work, everything was fine.

Then, another piece of weirdness: I went to do the rears (per Haynes manual), and did the routine about turning on the ignition while holding down the brake pedal, and letting the ABS pump flush the rear brake lines.

Nothing happened, as in zero. No fluid came out of either rear caliper. I THINK the ABS pump is working (at least it was making some teeny electric motor noises), and the entire brake system was working normally before I started messing around. Also, there are no ABS warning lights, and the fuses in the ABS box in the engine compartment are OK.

So then, with the engine and ignition OFF, I was able to bleed the left rear caliper the old-fashioned way -- pump, release, etc. (I was under the impression that that way would NOT work on the rears).

But on the right rear caliper, opening the bleed valve all the way (in fact, removing it), resulted in ZERO fluid coming out -- whether trying to pump the brake pedal manually, whether with the ignition on, or even with the damn engine running. And the ABS warning light does NOT come on during any of this

So what is going on? I guess my main questions are:

1) Why doesn't the "turn on the ignition to flush the rear calipers" method work?

2) How can I tell if my ABS pump is working (not just making a teeny noise)? How loud is it supposed to be?

3) Is it possible I've got a clogged brake line (the old fluid was really pretty nasty)?

4) why the difference between the left rear caliper (has fluid, bleedable) and right rear (no fluid, not bleedable)?

5) WTF is going on with the right rear caliper? The car apparently doesn't care if the bleed valve is open, or even removed -- how is this possible?

Again, the brakes were operating normally (I think) when I started work on the car. I have not tried to drive it since all this happened, because it's up on jack stands while I do other fun things like change the starter, change tranny fluid, etc.

There is one possible other related aspect -- a few months ago, the TCS light went on, and the car went into limp-home mode. But the next day, the TCS light went off, the limp mode disappeared, and the ABS light came on. The ABS turned out to be a bad diode (I had replaced the other diode about two years ago. Why didn't I do both? Because I'm stupid, that's why). So when I fixed the diode, the ABS light went OFF, but the TCS light came on, and is still on. But I think it's just a code that needs to be cleared out, because the car has NOT gone into limp-home mode.

All advice appreciated.



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