Had a speedbleeder die today running around during my lunch break at work.




Drove home with the ebrake.

I am now kind of sketched about them after this.

Used them probably 10 years ago and had them stop working properly. I never wanted to really say they sucked or are dangerous because there is always human error(something I did).

But to play it safe I stopped using them. Never had a problem with regular bleeders.

Thanks for sharing that, I was using them recently too and felt they just were cheaply functional..

Did they leak past the threads or actual nipple. This is very important as i have them
and would hate to loose my brakes when i am ripping.

The nipple.

i have a nice video the wife and I took of the nipple leaking fluid on every brake pedal depress.

I am going to put it on youtube and link it here.....

i put another speedbleeder back in there for now but I think I am going to swap them all out and go back to normal bleeders in the not too distant future.....

To give you an idea, i was doing 120mph yesterday morning, WOT full boost and this happened a few hours later......

Definitely not good. I mean the pedal decayed before it started going to teh floor, but it was not good enough.

Even though my 2001 GTI has a dual circuit master it sure did not feel like it, the pedal physically against the floor slowed me about 1mph per second at most

Was this on the street?

I have not used speed bleeders in the 2001 gti caliper but: I have looked at speedbleeders and it looked like when the tip is seated with the speedbleeder it is just like the stock bleeder. The only way the speedbleeder should let fluid pass is when it is backed off and not seated. Either the seat is damaged or the taper is the wrong size if the speedbleeder is truly tight against the seat. Are you sure you used the right speedbleeder for the caliper you have? It seems like a close examination of the original bleeder and the speedbleeder would show any differences.

Very scary... brake loss if not gradual is bad news....

I agree. It is a simple thing, full seat area contact = no leak. It was tightened fully, and I am about to go out to the garage any break the dial caliper out on the old bleeders as well as the removed speedbleeder.

Yeah, what?

I was late getting my daughter to the baby sitter and had not had my coffee yet.

I hope the aluminum caliper isn't stripped. I had bought some speedbleeders but went out to the shop to look at them and of course they are "put up" I guess.

The pattern on the contact seat of the bleeder is there for all but 60 degreees of the seating surface.

There was a good 3-4mm between the hex and caliper body.....

Makes me wonder if my calipers are not within spec and causing the leak.

I recall the old bleeder screws were this long. I am going to pull the other rear to inspect it.

I need to find the old bleeder screws to compare, going back 1 month in my garage is an eternity.

I was just asking. Did I say something wrong?

I am working from home today and I am miffed.... I recall comparing threaded length on the removed factory bleeder versus this and it being the same. The bleeder took force to remove, it was fully seated and you can see space between the hex portion of the screw and the caliper body.....

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/7422/p5021280.mp4

Nobody took the bait from my attempted troll! Damn.

I crack it open sunday mornings & late at night going to/coming from work on a stretch of highway here with no on/off ramps or places for people/things to get in the way should something happen.

I drive it very sedately in traffic, residential areas, and around town in general.