Hi all! I changed my front brake pads today and afterwards it started making a squishy sound, my best guess is I need to bleed the brake fluid, especially since I opened the fluid line in order to push the piston back in. Here is the sound I'm hearing:
Unless you just open the fluid line and left it sitting there open maybe You're supposed to put the piston in between your 20-in channel lock pliers and then you use a 10mm wrench while you're holding the pliers squeezing and open the fitting and then when you open the fitting your handles of your pliers start going together because the pistons are going down and you watch when the piston gets just at the end of travel you closed the fitting now you haven't let any air in but you've left some fluid out to compress the piston You will not need to bleed this system as described. If you didn't follow that to the letter and you let air in then you may need to bleed that noise of you pushing the brakes I don't know man that just sounds like a bunch of repetitive brake pushing and breaks and firewall sounds are going to be pretty similar to that especially when you keep doing it repeatedly over and over and over and over.
I'm just not sure because this sound wasn't present before changing the brakes. The sound is also more clear the first time I press the pedal I think it's a bit muffled afterwards. For the piston, I was aware of the methods but I didn't have large enough clamps so I unscrewed the fluid cap and pushed the piston in with a bar. Not super smart I know. but I wasnt aware of air issues at the time. I might try using a vacuum system to just bleed the brakes I'm worried about.
Don't use a vacuum system to bleed the brakes use the pedal and another human sitting in the car or if you really want to try with the car sitting on the ground go to the right side front wheel and crack the bleed screw the zerk fitting while you're lying there looking at the fitting do you see a constant drip dink dink ding ding It should be falling from that screw and hitting the inside edge of the wheel rim and running down the edge of the tire Do you see this happening? If so now lay there for 5 minutes it'll seem like hours look at a stopwatch or a clock or a wristwatch 5 minutes at 5 minutes Do you still see the drips dripping down onto the wheel rim and running down the edge of the tire at the 5-minute mark and the drips are coming out of the fitting at the same rate of speed dink dink dink dink. If yes close up that fitting and roll over to the other wheel in the front and crack that fitting do the same thing You are basically gravity bleeding the system it will push air out with the drips 5 minutes should be enough to get fluid from the front of the car down that little 1/8 or so inch brake line to either of the front wheels this has nothing to do with the back.. doing what you did to get the fluid out is acceptable usually I use a pair of 20-in channel locks I have the piston and the back of the piston bore already clamped in the jaws of the pliers and I'm sitting there holding it ready to squeeze while I'm holding it and squeezing which I can't squeeze I now open the 10 mm zerk fitting now the piston goes in and fluid is coming out as the piston bottoms out I'm tightening the zerk fitting it's only a half a turn open no air has come out or gone in the fitting using that methodology You can't wait around can't be looking and thinking about the phone ringing and all that You squeeze you clamp you open the fitting the piston goes in and you're closing as the piston is bottoming No air is gone anywhere out or in only fluid has come out of the fitting and you closed it before it completely bottomed and any air could be sucked in as it tried to rise back up when you let go of the pliers or any of that.
