While rotating tires and checking pad material this weekend, I thought it would be a good time to swap the stock brake bleed screws for speed bleeders. A friend had recommended them for quick bleeds, so I purchased the speed bleeders from a lancer parts retailers that I had used previously.

The install seemed to go smoothly enough at first. I stopped tightening once the one-way valve seemed to engage, and seemed to be able to bleed the brakes well enough. I tightened the screws further to where I thought they would be closed. After starting the car, I noticed that the pedal was noticeably softer as the power added significant force. Sure enough I was losing fluid. Tightened the screw past stock torque specs, refilled reservoir, try again. Now, a little more resistance, but the pedal goes to the floor again. Fluid everywhere now, all over strut, fender liners, sway bar, floor. What if I tighten a little bit more? Same result, more squirting brake fluid. At that point I needed to get the car back together so I could pick up a friend. After swapping back to the stock screw, no problem at all. Hmmm. I stopped to compare the two screws after the first bout of squirting fluid - there are definitely some differences.

Check out the attached picture. Stock on the left and speed bleeder on the right. The taper on the end of the screw and the shaft length above it seem to be significantly different between stock and speed bleeder. Is M10 x 1.0 really the stock replacement? The hole also seems quite a bit larger, and possible in a slightly different location.

For now I am going to stick with 2-person bleeding (and keep cleaning brake fluid off the walls of the garage).

 

excuse the ignorance, but what do "speed bleeders" do that regular bleeder screws don't?

 

They have a little ball & spring inside that allows fluid out, but not air in.

 

I had speed bleeders on my DSM. They never worked well.

Motive Power Bleeder >> Speed Bleeders

 

dam it I was JUST about to buy these and I said, Let me do a quick search on here. -___-

 

Yes, M10 x 1.0 is the right size bleed screw thread and pitch - speed bleeders or otherwise.

I was considering speed bleeders too. Maybe not. What I really want is a bleed screw inside a bleed screw... The Brembos bleed screw is steel, the caliper is aluminum, and the process of bleeding the brakes, if you do it often, (and we do) can cause the aluminum threads to slowly fail, or worse, you can easily strip them and find yourself with a helicoil kit. A real pain. But a steel bleed screw that threaded into a screw that you would only have to screw into the caliper once, would be great. It would allow for easier bleeding with les risk of stripping the caliper...

 

Might want to do some real quick and scrupulous work with some cleaner and rags, or your calipers are going to look like hell after that brake fluid sits on them for a couple days.

 

I looked at the speed bleeder and believe that, to get it to seat properly in the hole, I'll need to file down the tip from a point. I tried it with one and it is easy to do and now looks identical to the oem bleed screw. The real question will be will it seat properly and not allow fluid to escape at very high pressures and temperatures.

 

wouldn't it just be easier to helicoil the caliper hole and insert the steel bleeder than wait for someone to make what you described?

 

In theory, the Speed Bleeders for any recent STi will fit our cars without any modification (since they're the same brakes). The part number is SB1010S.

 

lol

 

Well, yes. As a temp fix, and we've helicoiled one caliper. (We keep a spare set of calipers ready to go). But the right long term solution is a better design than steel into aluminum, especially when you are bleeding the calipers 20 times a season. So, there's nothing wrong with a helicoil, but they won't last forever.

 

Which Power Bleeder kit did you pick up for your Evo?

 

my buddy stripped out his calipers from overtightening and then tryed to helicoil them. he was driving it one day and the helicoil came loose and stripped it out further. none the less i wouldn't want to put a tempory fix in something that is so vital as the brakes. I was thinking of a way to almost put a quick coupler for the bleeder screw so when you need to bleed just connect, pump, and your good to go but would have to have someone CAD it up to see if it is feasable.

 

Motive #1107 - it says Ford three-tab, but don't let that scare you; it's the right one