Using a MityVac for Brakes and Fluid Changes
- Greenbarn - VDR
I just drove to my shop and brought back my mityvac, and it worked as designed on my bike. The bleeding took about 10 minutes. Here's what I did. I'll try to highlight a few things that can go wrong, making this effort unsuccessful.
1) Hook up a hose(s) between bleeder and mityvac. It's important to find a hose that fits tight on the bleeder so's it can draw vacuum on it and pull fluid. There should be several adapters in the kit. If you don't get a good seal here, you won't pull fluid through the system, and you won't get the air out.
2) Fill the brake fluid reservoir with clean fluid - I sucked all the old stuff out with a big syringe to minimize the amount I had to pump through to get all the old out.
3) It's important to not let the reservoir go dry - if it does you start over with air in the system. The thing holds surprisingly little fluid - I sucked it dry twice. It helps to have someone watch it and keep it full.
4) Open the bleeder - a quarter to half turn is sufficient - just enough to let fluid out - any more and it takes too long to close it.
5) Draw vacuum on the mity vac - you can tell if it's working if you get fluid coming out of the bleeder into the hose (hopefully you have a clear hose), and eventually into the mity-vac collection chamber.
6) Draw through enough fluid to get all the old stuff out. MAKE SURE you keep the m/c full. You need to draw a few ounces of fluid through as rapidly as possible in order to try to clear the air out.
7) Tighten the bleeder. Take off the mity-vac.
refill the reservoir (if needed). Pump the brake handle a few times. You should have "pedal". If not, pump it a few times.
This is what I just did on mine. I didn't have solid pedal first pump, but it was because I just had the caliper off earlier - it takes a couple of pumps to tighten the pads up on the rotor.
Hope this works for you D1. This is actually a lot easier than making a mess taking off the line at the m/c.
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CNDRATMAN
ok used my Mity Vac today for the first time and followed Sir Greenbarn's page here. Wish I had help to just take pictures. Step one = worked awesome all the fittings and the small one for the Drifter 800 worked really well and held the vacum.
Step two = was the easy part and I cleaned the reservoir out with paper towel to just get more out.
Step three = I really messed up here, (ok not the qickest one here, but it was cool watching the fluid and forgot to watch), he is correct does not take a lot to drain the system. Did it three times...lol...on an 800 ding the rear you can watch and reach the reservoir alone, unless you are 4' nothing.
Step four = bang on
Step five = it comes out really neat......worked fine
Step six = it worked really well here to draw it out. I used the short hoses which were better I think then the long ones.
Step seven = finished...
I took about 20 mins because I was not rushing and just took my time and had to fill the M/C a couple of times...lol....
the POever said when he did his but I took pictures of the fluid and you decide if it needed changing.....Very simple tool to use worth the $30.00 in my mind, but I am just me....