Special brake bleeding procedure?

I have put a new master cylinder on the car along with new calipers/pads.

Is there anything different I need to do to bleed the brakes since the master cylinder is new and the reservoir is currently empty?

Thought I'd ask since the correct pads for the front will be here tomorrow and I should be able to bleed the brakes and clutch.

I've always bench bled new master cylinders before installing them.

Haha, OK, let's approach it from this angle. I'm not going to take that bastid back out of the car!

find a spot where you can get the m/c as close to level while still in the car. this will be somewhere with the nose pointing slightly down on most cars. then unhook the hard lines, and hook up the little plastic fittings and tubing like it says to, and bleed the thing until theres no more bubbles. hook everything back up and bleed the rest of the brake system. then go have some fun, assuming the new/rebuilt one isn't crap and you now have to do the whole thing over again (damn cardone crap rebuilds).

<----replacing a DOA rebuilt MC this evening

I purchased a new ATE master cylinder for the E30, so hopefully that won't be a problem!

I think the with the rake of the suspension right now it may be level with the car on the ground.

Well... you can bench bleed the m/c with it installed in the car, it's just a bit more difficult, but the process is basically the same. Either way, you should definitely do it. Otherwise, you're pumping a crap-load of air through the system. And in some cars with ABS, this would be bad as then you'll need a computer to cycling the ABS system to get the air out.

You definitely NEED to bleed the master cylinder first. I just put one in an old Mazda and it probably took 30 pumps just to get somewhat solid fluid out of the MC on a bench. If you set it up right you will not need to keep filling the MC, so in the car should be fine.

Well E36 M3, my MC didn't come with any little plastic fittings to bleed it.

Crap, I was really hoping to avoid taking that thing back out of the car.

The kits come with the Autozone master cylinders. Try conning them into giving you one after yours didn't come with it, which it didn't...

"I bought a master cylinder for a ___ last week and I installed it on the vehicle before I noticed that it didn't come with the bleeding kit."...

Crack the hard lines at the MC, fill the reservoir and let gravity do the work. This works on some MC's... sometimes they're a pita.

Lots of short pedal strokes are key to burping air out of any master cyl, clutch or brake. Returning the cylinder to fully relaxed allows air bubbles to escape into the reservoir. Doing it a whole lot will eventually clear the air. Changing the angle of the vehicle will sometimes allow the last bit of air to escape. On stubborn bmw clutch masters I sometimes resort to parking the car on an incline with the nose high, this has always worked.

It's going to be a PITA anyway I go about it I think. All the calipers have been off the car, and the fronts for quite awhile.

There is going to be alot of air in the entire system I'm sure.

do you need to bench bleed the master if you are using a vac bleeder? or a pressure bleeder?...

sorry I just don't understand the need to bench bleed... i'm sure i'm just missing something.

^im curious of that as well since I'm going to use a power bleeder. I'm guessing it will take much more fluid without having bench bled the master.

I never bench bleed but I always use a pressure bleeder.

Without a pressure bleeder it's down to a mixture of dark arts and swearing.

Vacuum bleeders are not nearly as easy to use.

You don't really need anything special to bench bleed. I've bought straight line with the correct fittings at my FLAPS, cut off a few inches, put some tubing on the end that will reach from the fitting into the reservior and pump it until its done. Usually MC's come with little plastic caps to protect the output line holes. I quickly pop these back in after removing the temp fittings to reduce leakage.

You can pre-bleed calipers as well, although for that you need a mighty-vac or similar (or a reverse flow injector-bleeder).

Can you bleed a totally dry system with a pressure bleeder? Can't imagine why not... But it'll probably take longer and use more fluid.

I found out the hard way that Speedbleeders don't work well if there's a lot of air in the caliper. Seems to have trouble developing enough pressure to overcome the check-valve spring.