How To Replace Brake Fluid by Yourself - EricTheCarGuy

hello Eric de carga a viewer i am eric the car guy back again with hopefully some more useful information for you in fact I know this is useful information because you probably requested this video a lot a lot since I started doing this you've wanted to know this and that is how do I change the brake fluid in my car it's really kind of a simple straightforward operation and it just so happens that I'm doing other service on this and I have all four wheels up off the ground as an aside I think my preferred method is to use a pressure bleeder and that's a device that I used to have when I worked it actually a couple of shops and I've got to tell you having on the pressure bleeder you just you just hook that thing up to the top of the master cylinder it sends pressurized brake fluid into the master cylinder itself and all you got to do is go around all four wheels and crack up leaders until you see it come out clean it's just that simple if you're going to change the brake fluid make sure you change it with the same type that you have in there usually it says on the master cylinder capital say like 3.4 what have you as far as the service interval for this I usually do this during a major service somewhere between thirty and fifty thousand miles take that with a grain of salt actually consult with your owner's manual or better yet your service manual for the vehicle that you're working on for the specifics on that and also what type of brake fluid that you have in there so I believe that's all the you know disclaimers I got a throw at you before I get started but now that I've done that I'm gonna go around remove all four wheels to expose the brakes themselves all right I just threw a fender cover down on the Subaru some of you may laugh at me for that but brake fluid eats paint so you want to try to avoid getting brake fluid on any painted surfaces as sponge especially on the outside so fender covers is a great idea this is the master cylinder on this vehicle I'm going to start by cleaning the outside of it before I actually take the cap off this way I can I can see my work and be proud of it but it's it's just something I've kind of always done this is brake cleaner by the way I'm not going for museum quality I'm really just going for I want to see through the reservoir and see clean brake fluid now that I have the top of the master cylinder removed I'm gonna break out my special tool to basically get out the old brake fluid that's in the master cylinder right now and that is this high-tech turkey baster I picked it up at the grocery store for very little money even if you only use it once because I will tell you they aren't going to last too long because brake flow will eat away at this rubber but even if you just use it once so what but these are handy to have around so I start by taking out what's in the master cylinder and then I have this extra jug here that I'm just gonna put the excess fluid into I don't need to get out every last drop just the majority of it now I'm gonna top off the master with new fluid now for some of you you may want to stop right here and I'm not gonna fault you for that in fact I worked at the dealership and several of my compatriots this is as far as they went if they even went this far it's up to you but if you want to go the extra mile let's go the extra mile but as far as I'm concerned you could do this and the brake fluid is quote unquote change because majority of it is actually here but now let's go and bleed it out at the wheels okay here's something that is often in debate as far as bleeding procedures now I'm not trying to eliminate air from the system here I'm just basically cycling the brake fluid through in order to get clean brake fluid through the entire system the procedure that I follow is left front right rear right front left rear and I'm going to tell you why I do it that way this wheel is closest to the master cylinder at least in the States therefore if I start bleeding at this wheel I'm gonna get the most fluid through first if I start at the back I'm going to run all the dirty fluid through the whole system before I get to this point basically what I'm trying to say is I have come to a place where I prefer to do it this way many people do it just the opposite and they start furthest from the master cylinder nothing wrong with that nothing at all wrong with that if you if you want to start at the right rear wheel and then do the left front and then do the left rear and right front go for it I'm not saying you're wrong and doing that I'm just doing it this way because I've been doing it this way for a while I found it works for me you can do it whatever way you like we're just changing the brake fluid we're not bleeding air out or anything like that just changing the brake fluid okay we've got clean fluid in the master so we're gonna be sending clean fluid down into here eventually this way we don't have to send all that dirty fluid through here we got the cleans the dirty stuff out of the master we're gonna be sending clean stuff through and it's not going to take long to do this there's a little rubber plug here that you can take out and on the Subaru these are eight millimeter bleed screws and then I have this this is my handy bleed bottle this is just a regular soda bottle I just drilled a hole on the top of it this is tubing from an aquarium you know set up you can also find this at a lot of times at your big box hardware stores if you go in the plumbing section you'll find this tubing lastly I just have a piece of vacuum line that fit the end of the bleeder and also happen to fit over the end of this tubing over time this tubing may get hard and brittle it may not stay pliable like this you can buy lots and lots of it you don't need a whole lot but I have enough to basically fill in to the bottom of this setup here at this bottle and the reason is that as long as this end here is submerged in fluid it's not going to be able to draw air back into the system even if I take my foot off the pedal because it'll draw back in but it won't be drawing air it'll be drawing fluid and that's the idea to try to maintain like an integrity of the fluid inside the system so I just take this well that's awfully loose-fitting I might just go with straight aquarium tubing on this this bleeder smaller than what I'm used to I just took my vacuum line off the end of this I'm gonna see if this will I'm gonna just need to the end of it's a little bit hard I'm just gonna trim it having an airtight fit here or something close to it is good that just slipped right on there without the vacuum line so for this vehicle I'm just gonna use straight tubing and then I'm gonna go in I'm gonna crack this loose I'm gonna go inside I'm gonna pump the pedal a few times it's still nice until I start to see clear fluid coming out of this tube okay flute is nice and clear coming out of here into my bottle I'm just gonna go back up now and top off the master cylinder again because you never want to run the master cylinder dry running the master cylinder dry is well that's gonna be a bad day so don't run the master cylinder dry if you can have a buddy help you do this and it's gonna go a lot quicker he can pump the pedal y-you or she can pump the pedal while you go around and do your thing at the wheels and you'll be done lickety-split this is not this is not rocket science it's not a complicated operation I get this question a lot too Eric I broke the bleeder valve off of my caliper what do I do and I still need to bleed the system that does suck but you're not without hope right down here is the inlet for the brake line instead of bleeding here at the bleeder just leave the broken bleeder in there don't try to take it out drill it all that kind of stuff you're just wasting your time you can also bleed right here so all you got to do is knock this nut back here loose put a bucket or something like that under there so that you can catch the fluid that comes out and then open and close this the same way would a bleeder but just bleed it at the line and that will save you a lot of trouble now I'm gonna head back to the right rear it looks like they switched up on me and the bleeder back here is a 10 millimeter it's a slightly larger looks like I'm still gonna be able to use yeah my tube here first I'm gonna put the wrench on on my tube I'm gonna crack it loose and then start pumping don't waste time coming back to close this off I just hit the pedal man I think it was like eight or ten times and that's it once the fluid comes out clear you you've changed the brake fluid now let's do the right the other wheels now the right front now moving on to the left rear it's up off the master since this is our final time topping off the master be sure to note where the brake fluid was before you got started if you fill it up over that mark and you go to change like say the front brake pads and you push the caliper Pistons in you'll notice that all the brake fluid will run out the top of the master cylinder down the firewall and onto the ground if you try to get it close well first of all I don't recommend that you do that but if you try to get it close it'll be a good indication of front brake pad where because as a front pads wear this level will go down so the lower this level is the more it could indicate that you have brakes that are worn out so it's a good idea to try to get it back to that level for a number of reasons because if the fluid level gets low enough the brake light on the dash will come on and let you know that your brake fluid is low and it's probably good time to check your brakes if you top it all the way off what's gonna happen is you go to try to well your brakes could wear out and you may not be aware of it other than the grinding noise when you step on the pedal all right this has like a little rubber insert on the top and I'm just gonna push it back in like that as the brake fluid goes lower it's gonna draw this in with it to help clear the void that's up at the top here brake fluid and air are the reason why you're doing this because brake fluid the more it combines with air gets hydro scopic a brake fluid is hydroscopic which means it absorbs moisture and as it does so it becomes somewhat acidic that's one of the main reasons that you're doing this but as you can see I've got some nice clean brake fluid here and I say my brake fluids change let's wrap this up well I'm very happy to have been able to fill this age-old request it seems it seems like since I started doing air at the car guy people have been asking me to do a video about changing brake fluid and I had the opportunity today so here we are I hope this information was helpful to you bleeding procedure is pretty much up to you however I prefer to do left front right rear right front left rear that's how I prefer to do it but some people like to do it right rear left front left rear right front that's how some people like to do it and you know what I say go for it do it whatever way you like also I recommend removing the brake fluid inside the master cylinder reservoir before you get started and my handy bleeding tool makes it so that it could be a one-man job and if you're really industrious make four of those and do all four wheels at once this this very may very well be a two-person job and and this is why some of those bleeder screws we need knock them loose will draw an air around the threads when you release the pedal and that can sometimes be an issue so if you if you see like lots of air being trapped in that line it could be the result of air being drawn in elsewhere or your fitting down on top of the bleeder screw itself might not be so great you break a bleeder screw bleed it at the line and another thing you might run into if those little rubber caps are not on when you go to do this you may find that there's no fluid coming out and you may have to remove the bleeder screw clean it all up reinstall it you know because there's like a little hole in the bottom it'll either rust it up or a bunch of crud will get down and that's why it's a good idea to put them rubber things back on without doing that a bunch of stuff can get down in there it gets all crusted up and it won't be a bleeder screw anymore it'll just be like you stuck a nut in there and you'll have to clean it out which is kind of a pain to do but I usually take him out take him over to the wire wheel clean out the part that gets clogged up we with a pic or something like that make it so that I can blow compressed air through it and stick it back on the car and away I go and even sometimes I'll go through and maybe put like a little dab of grease or silicone paste or something on the hole to keep stuff from getting back down in there again hopefully helpful suggestions for you anyway I am here at the car guy you can find me in facebook twitter and google+ and always at eric the car guy dot-com where if you have automotive questions i ask that you go there and either use the search function at the top of the page or you consult with us on the forum and sign up it's free and we'll do our best to answer your questions over there anyway if the car guy here reminding you to be safe have fun and stay dirty set for your break flu

Channel: EricTheCarGuy

Views: 2,765,944

Rating: 4.8954678 out of 5

Keywords: brake fluid, replacing brake fluid, flushing brake fluid, dot 3, dot 4, dot 5, renew brake fluid, how to replace brake fluid, ABS, bleeding brakes, brake bleeding order, brake bleeding sequence, caliper, bleeding caliper, bleeding wheel cylinder, dirty brake fluid, replacing dirty brake fluid, dirty brake fluid removal, automotive education, automotive how to, how to auto repair, how to brake repair, diy brake repair, brake service, eric the car guy, ericthecarguy, etcg

Id: V5O_pbC8R2E

Length: 15min 11sec (911 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 15 2012