Quote:
Originally Posted by 78w72
gravity bleeding is not an "insurmountable process"... its just very messy for the car & will eat any paint it touches unless you take measures to put a hose on the bleeder to get the brake fluid away from any parts of the car & use a container on the ground to catch the fluid.
nothing wrong with that, i just have always preferred to do it manually & watch the fluid to know when the bubbles have stopped. nobody on here is doing this as a business in a shop & needs it done in 2-3 minutes.
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You're forgetting that the main reason people post about bleeding brakes is that they can't seem to get the air out of the system. Gravity bleeding does it more efficiently than other forms of bleeding, most times once is all that is required.
The vacuum method, and pressure bleeding, either with pedal movement, or with an air pushing fluid through the system many times don't work the first time, and are repeated over and over to purge the air. Gravity will purge air at the master cylinder as well as the bleeder because without pressure against the fluid column the air will travel upwards to the master cylinder, and you effect air letting at both ends of the fluid column instead of forcing all the air downward through the bleeder multiple times.
Pressure bleeding still ends up on the floor if you're not abundantly careful, and has the potential to squirt fluid all over the undercarriage, so the argument that gravity bleeding is going to remove paint, and is messy is a weak point.
Efficiency is why I prefer to use gravity bleeding, it works quickly and most time once is all that is required to completely purge the system. Even if someone isn't in a production setting, it's still the best choice of, one and done, and that is the main point, to get it done the first time correctly, and move on.
BTW, pumping the pedal to remove air is a great method to remove paint on a fender, inner fender, and firewall. I've seen more paint on left fenders ruined by using this method than I can count by trapped air forcing the fluid back through the system when the pedal is released during the bleeding process. It's much easier to touch up undercarriage paint than it is the paint on the top of the fender. All it takes is leaving the cover off the reservoir one time while bleeding to cause a ruined exterior paint job.........
