[x-bird]

Felt today was a good day to revisit this one. I just installed all new brakes on the mini shark, with the exception of the caliper. I inspected the caliper prior to the install and all is good (nearly new). Trying the gravity bleed method, i got a tiny dribble into the master after 45 minutes. I also disconnected the line at the caliper (reservoir open) and sucked on it and got a little more, but not much. So i broke out the mighty mac bleeder and gave it a whirl. using it connected to the opened bleeder screw didn't do much of anything. It wasn't until i got a fitting that i could thread in place of the bleeder screw and would hold vacuum in the pump system that i got it to work. What i think is that since it's such a small volume of fluid and small orifices throughout, any air leakage at the bleeder screw will negate the suction quicker than the fluid can flow. I pumped the life out of it while on the bleeder screw and got zip. with the fitting shown below put in place of the bleeder screw, i was able to pull 5-6 ounces through the system pretty quickly. I was getting 15-20 psi without any leakdown until i opened the reservoir lid. After closing the reservoir and removing the fitting and installing the bleeder, a couple traditional pump, crack it, close it runs took care of the last little bit of air that backflowed in during the changeover.

Also, the amount of fluid that moves through the system is again so slight, that i don't think it will "fill" the drain hose--it will still give a bubbling outflow even when all the air is out. if the outflow hose was quickly reduced to an ID diameter of about 1/8 or less, then i think you'd see a solid stream of fluid--or loop the hose above the caliper to create a filled section. otherwise, it'll look like you're pulling air through even when you're not.