I bought some speedbleeders from speedbleeders.com for my brakes and installed them 3 weeks ago. Everything seemed fine until yesterday while driving my brake light came on and then I lost a lot of braking ability, the pedal could touch the floor but still had enough force to allow me to pull over. Checked the master cylinder...empty. Good thing I wasn't on the freeway. I had someone bring me some fluid and filled the cylinder and drove home carefully with a squishy pedal. I switched back to the original bleeders. It seems like the front passenger side had a lot of air coming out the lines when I bled it again. What a terrible and dangerous product.

 

Sounds scary!!! E brake!

 

good reminder Dave--

the PARK brakes are a mini set of drum brakes INSIDE the center hub of rear rotor (thats why its so wide)
Shift to N, apply a few clicks to slow, then full as its almost stopped

Have to wonder why you drove home without bleeding the calipers?
If the master cyl inner arm is pushed past its normal range it can damage
the oring seal = new master cyl time
thats why I suggest a block of 2x4 under brake arm when doing normal bleed

Speed bleeders in general have an excellent reputation
You could have a defective one- send it to seller for examination
Most suggest a wrap of teflon tape around the threads
something you dont do with normal bleeder nipple/screw

 

did you flush the brake fluid before the speeders were installed
or could several years old crud have gotten into its special valve?

 

Yeah, I probably should not have drove home with the brakes like that, luckily I barely had to use the brakes on my drive home. I will take my car to a mechanic to see if I have done any damage to the master cylinder.

The brakes were bled less than 12 months before I installed the speedbleeders. When I bled the brakes during the initial speedbleeder install, the fluid was very much clear/light yellow as I have not driven the car much but there very well may have been old material that jammed the check valve. I will be sending the whole set back to see if they can give me an opinion on what happened.

 

lol the Whole SpeedBleeder thing seems a JOKE to me... How much Bleeds does one make a YEAR to really pay for those suckers???

Glad you were Fine Tough!

 

those who enjoy driving and braking in a spirited manner, will flush brake fluid before a track day or mountain fun run, and after!
as that fluid will have been exposed to a lot of heat = not good anymore
one man speeders make it a simple job
At the track we often bleed brakes between sessions.. just to be sure

car that sat 12 months definetly needs to be flushed
brake fluid doesnt circulate, so it absorbs moisture and cant dry out
Use of brakes pushes compressed water thru the fluid and into the calipers,
where it makes micro sized rust - just waiting for an opportunity to mess up a seal,,
or in this case a speed bleeder
wiki hygroscopic for more on moisture and you will go flush all the fluids!

 

after you have bled the brakes- go do the abs test-
from 45mph do full abs active stop, to a full stop.
Use water-gravel-swerving etc to lose traction and cause brake pedal to pulse wildly under your foot
Stand on them brakes!!
then accellerate normal and repeat braking
if the 2nd time had better-firmer pedal = there was air trapped in the controller
cant get it out until you go operate the system like this
repeat full bleed and a few bubbles will be waiting for you
Mine were in the LF caliper