I swear, I am the king of breaking ****.

So I recently got my wilwood big brake kit installed. In order to bleed the brakes, I had to completely remove the bleed screw from the caliper, because no matter what I did, there was nothing coming out of the bleed screws. I even used a suction hand-pump from autozone, nothing came out of the damn things. But anyway, I finally had them bled and had a decently stiff pedal.

When I tried to bed in the pads, I kept smelling burning brake fluid.. Great. Pulled back into the driveway and the inside of my rims had a ton of brake fluid on them.

I jack the car up and take off the tire, and determined that the fluid was coming out of the bottom two bleed screws which I never touched during this whole process. I figure maybe they weren't tight from the factory or something? So I tighten them up as best I can.

I went back and pumped the brakes a few times, and come back to see that the screws are letting out even MORE fluid. So I proceed to tighten the screw as tight as I possibly can... And the ****** breaks.

Now wtf do I do? Has anyone ever had this much difficulty with the bleeder screws leaking everywhere or am I just the short bus kind of special?

Here's a picture of the carnage.

 

Did you snap the brass part off? I remember mine took considerable tightening before they stopped leaking. Also took ages to bleed. I don't like the 8-possible-points-of-failure-per-caliper solution either. Plan to replace all 4 bottom bleeders with plugs and loctite them in.

 

Yeah it was just the threading on the screw that snapped. Should be a fun task to get it out of the caliper. Another annoying design of these calipers is that the inner bleeder screw is a huge PITA to turn because you can't fit a socket onto it like you can with the outer ones. I don't know who designed it that way but they should be shot.

I like the idea of replacing the bottom screws with plugs. You wouldn't happen to have a link to a place I can buy them, would you?

 

thats annoying, and also part number 220-0627
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/wil-220-0627

 

Regarding replacing the bottom screws with plugs, I wouldn't. While you don't have to bleed out the bottom ports, if you want to flush the entire system you will need to use those to get the fluid out of the bottom of the calipers. I had ATE Super Blue in my system, then went through a gallon + of regular clear fluid doing my ABS install (long story, see my build thread if you want to know why). Towards the end of that gallon, I opened the bottom bleed screws and found that it still had blue fluid coming out.

As for the bleed screws, I had to tighten the brass ones when installing the rear PowerLites (the front DynaLites were appropriately tight from the factory) on my car, but nothing crazy. After that I just loosen the 1/4" black screws to bleed the caliper and it works fine.

--Ian

 

Ok guys, I'm officially taking suggestions on how to get this damn thing out... I tried a drill bit slightly larger than the stuck fitting and tried to slowly reverse it out while putting a lot of pressure on it, no dice. I'm afraid of trying an even bigger drill bit because all I can think about is drilling the threads of the bleeder hole down, which would basically require me to buy a whole new caliper.

If you've got a link to a tool or drill bit for these specific situations I'd appreciate it.. Thanks for the info so far as well.

 

Get one of those remover thingies from Sears. They work quite well.

 

Thanks, I thought that might be best. I have one now that's a little too small so I guess there's gonna be a trip to sears tomorrow at lunch.

Also, I figured out what was wrong and the reason this happened in the first place. I am so ******* dumb it amazes me that I made it to 28 without earning my darwin award.

For those who come into this thread some time in the future, who are as dumb as me and can't figure out why they can't bleed their brakes, I give you this little image to help out.

 

Oh wow. Didn't expect that. Lulz. Mine leaked on both the brass plug and the black bleeder. I took them all out and put loctite on the brass plugs after cleaning them of the old red sealant that was on there. For the plugs, any 1/8-27 npt plug should work. I have plenty left over from my oil sandwich plates.

 

fixed your thread title to avoid tons of people coming in to confuse us all.

Also I did enjoy the use of speed bleeders on my wilwoods. Some don't like them, but I found them useful for when you have 6000 bleeder screws. Also a nice vinyl tubing with a wye fitting will allow you to do them both at the same time. I think my wheels allowed me access to both top screws with a tiny box end.

 

Haha thanks for not changing it to "Click here for noob stupidity"

Thanks for the help guys.

 

Sorry for the thread resurrection, but had the same thing happen to me on one caliper. The other one is leaking as well and I presume it has a similar problem. Can't believe this is the quality you get when spending so much money...

In any case, how did you extract the remaining of the bleeder screw and how did you fix it in the end?