Holy crap, a cool tool. Did Bruce leave the building?

Gah! That's way too expensive for so trivial a task. A child can bleed brakes!

Not cool. Bad tool. Strike pi + e.

Sorry, I thought we were just doing that now...

Those look a lot better than the home-made pickle jar and hoses contraption I currently use, but you have to buy four and you can't use them on successive cars (my old pickle jar has seen eight cars now).

Nonetheless, a Cool Tool... and hopefully something that will be OEMed one day. Thanks Bruce!

Eric and John, why don't you submit some Cool Tools yourself. It might give you something to do with your time, other than whining.

@Charlie- Bruce didn't look entirely good lately, but he's apparently savvy enough to get into a good mixup and not let it compromise his ability to perform. He'll learn, as I'm sure anyone would when doing this job.

@John- Good one.

@Eric- You should've posted a pickle jar comment. Or a reference to an older Cool Tool, the MityVac, which also does one-man brake bleeding.

-C

I was joking, Charlie, and am sorry if I didn't make that obvious. I was hoping to preempt the nudniks who were about to post the same nonsense seriously. Sarcasm is MY Cool Tool of choice, but somehow I don't think a review would work...

When you talk pickle jars, by the way, is that literal? Something like this can obviously be built, but I was wondering if you referred to a product that was uglier but more sound.

I am wondering why you guys are bleeding your disc brakes. Remove the old pads, unscrew the reservoir cap under the hood, use a large c-clamp and slowly push the piston back all the way. The fluid will bubble up into the reservoir, but no air gets in the lines. When you are done, you sometimes have to scoop out the excess fluid from the reservoir, but that's it. I haven't bled brakes in 20 years, and have never had a problem.

Sorta cool, but nothing beats a shitbot.

Trouble is, if you get any grit and grime into the bleeder, they'll leak out. When these first showed up they were popular with weekend-warrior racers but you get some grit in there and stand on the brakes and lose pressure... bad news.

Let me clue you in here, so that you're not all puzzled by the behavior of the next editor. I don't leave the building to get you some Cool Tools. I edit the recommendations that are sent off the Cool Tools recommendations. I'm a pretty weird guy, so certain people do eagerly send me some weird stuff. Granted. I like stuff that is out-there. If I were a car guy, I'd likely get much more car stuff. Pocketknife guys would get pocketknife stuff, sailing guys might get lots of sail gear, etc etc. Do you grasp how this works? I'm not cherry-picking through dozens of submissions. I'm editing the *prose* of the submissions, and then adding some links to them.

*I do not conjure Cool Tools from thin air. Heck no. I am giving you back whatever you give to me. Simple as that. That's really, truly how the site works, that's the entire genius of it. The genius emerges from the community. The editors are just packagers. Any complainers here are complaining about *themselves*. They're not sending in enough material to suit their own tastes. A hundred editors couldn't help you over that hump. You're looking at your own face in a mirror.

*This brake-bleeder thing came over the transom two weeks ago. If I got enough car gear out of the CT userbase, I'd be blogging car gear like you wouldn't believe. That's not in the inbox yet, though it sure oughta be. People are going to seriously need some car-repair information from each other, I can promise you, because NOBODY is buying new cars now. Nobody. The car companies are bankrupt. It's a fact. The US automobile fleet is aging like something out of Cuba, while we're sitting here typing on keyboards.

*When your car is two years older, and you can't afford to hire a repair guy, how are you gonna fix that? How? Internet. Of course! Same place where you bought the car. And there's gonna be 153,856 car repair spam sites eager to rob you. You agree with me about all that, right? Robot catboxes are nifty weird futurist things, but your car is how you get your kid to school.

*They're nice things, eh, "brake bleeders"? I never heard of 'em before Cool Tools.

Bruce, you're doing just fine. Out of the thousands of people who read and/or subscribe to CT, I expect that very few even know that there are comments available for each post and even fewer know of the recent drama. It is very rare that a CoolTool is useful for me personally, and I doubt that the ratio is any better for others. But it's still an interesting site that I look forward to checking every day. One or two duds isn't going to deter me or even register as an abnormality.

Bruce,

Cools Tools is the best porn in the internet. I have religiously looked through all the archives to find things of interest to me. Heck, I have even found items reviewed on Cool Tools after I bought them, confirming my own amazing ability to judge quality.

Thank you for what you do.

Michael

Another useful tool. Someone must have sedated Brucie.

What's a brake job these days?? $200?? Once ever 5 years or so?

It doesn't seem worth it.

First rule of troll club is....do not respond to troll club.

And Bruce...big fan here...but editing this site must certainly include some responsibility for choosing the cool tool? You aren't just posting them in order of submission are you?

Not sure about the grit comment as, other than the check valve part, these seal up the same way as the 'dumb' bleeder screw that they replace.

I find these extremely easy to use as I have to do my brake bleeding alone most of the time.

A few sizes can often be found in the 'HELP' section of auto parts stores.

Regards,
Chauncy

*Well, I could in fact post some Cool Tool review that I myself wrote, but I never got around to that. Yes, I pretty much am publishing them in order of submission. Simple as that.

*Of course, some guys are sending in submissions *specifically because they know I'm the editor,* and that's why things got a little weird suddenly. I wish you could see this nanobox made out of woven DNA that's got a working, hinged lid. The box is ultramicroscopic, it snaps shut and it contains single proteins. Unfortunately it's a nanotech lab curiosity and it's not available on Amazon, so we're gonna kind of be ducking that one.

*There's are also Cool Tools "submissions" that are spam, product pitches, or clearly from the mentally ill. Those don't get posted; the editor holds them at bay so you don't have to witness them.

I know that I howled as much as anyone -- maybe more -- at the fashion bag post, but all of this gratuitous Bruce-bashing is much worse than his original misstep. Can we please move on?

DGF

There must have been something that happened in the comments sections that I've missed, why is everyone ragging on Bruce and Cool Tools? I've been visiting this site regularly for two years now and I love the eclectic mix of things that get reviewed here. I mean where else are you going to read about Volvo 240's, a guitar tuner, sleep machine, and a book that helps you to organize information elegantly for readers all in the same place? That's what makes this site special is that it reviews tools for all aspects of life.

If you just want hand tools and garage stuff go to Toolmonger, which I think is the site that first lead me to this one. And stop trolling up the comments on this site.

Randal is right. Bleeding is only needed when changing hydraulic parts, not for pad replacement. That said,the problem with these is you still need a hose and jelly/pickle jar if you want to keep the brake fluid from spraying all over the place. Besides, I like to see the bubbles and dirty fluid coming out through my clear tubing. I keep bleeding until the fluid is clean and flush much of the old fluid out while bleeding. Did I mention that brake fluid will eat paint? Yes, I did. Also, never use old brake fluid. Treat your car to a new bottle.

Keep those excellent tools coming.

Oh, sorry I missed the irony there John. mea culpa. Yes, it's really a pickle jar, with hoses made of brake line connected to fittings made of tire valves with the centers removed. It works like a water pipe or a collapsed lung inflation gadget.

Randal Stevens, don't do that trick with anti-lock brakes. Pushing the fluid back through the ABS unit damages it, at least according to my professional Honda shop manuals. It's fine for non-ABS, though, you're right.

Moon, I wanted to save myself 45 minutes of work so I took my wife's car to a well-respected local garage to have her brakes done. A simple brake job, for crying out loud, any bozo can do it. Luckily, my family was not killed when the left rear wheel seized on the highway... I took a $1000 settlement and the shop paid to have both rear calipers replaced at a Honda dealership. I will not trust anyone to do my brakes again, sorry, it takes less than 2 hours to do all four wheels.

@Charlie#20: My Dodge manual has no such restriction on caliper compression, and I run 4whl discs with ABS. Same on the Subie, no restrictions. Both cars have separate ABS reservoirs, maybe that makes a difference?

-C

I read that as speed bladders and my mind jumped to some very uncomfortable conclusions....

You might be right, christopher, neither of my cars has a separate ABS reservoir. Or maybe it's something particular to Hondas? I haven't been a professional mechanic since drum brakes were still commonplace, ABS came out after I went amateur :) .

I always buy the factory shop manuals for my cars. Pricy but (usually) worth it. Unless your spouse totals the vehicle a week after you buy the manual... D'OH!

I'm with Randal... I've always done my own disc brake pads, and have never needed to bleed them from a simple brake pad swap. Changing lines and such is where the speed bleeders would come in handy. All I really want is rust-proof bleeders, 1-man or not, don't know how many rusted bleeder valves have broken off on me over the years...

Randal and Chris W,

The main problem with compressing the caliper cylinder and pushing the old fluid back to the reservoir is that the old fluid is NOT like what's in the reservoir. The calipers take a lot of heat and wear while stopping your 1.5-4 ton auto with a 7-square-inch surface. The heat and wear breaks down the fluid, not to mention the crud that accumulates as the caliper seals, hose lining and even synthetic coatings on metal parts breaks down over time.

Some manufacturers might have engineered solutions (like independent ABS cylinders?) to prevent problems, but either way you are pushing old, dirty, broken down fluid back into either the ABS diverter valve or the master cylinder. Dealers and good shops will frequently bleed disc brakes with every pad change. You will extend the life of your brake system by doing this, and make it unnecessary to do a "brake fluid flush" every 2 years the way new car manuals and Jiffy Lube maintenance charts say.

And Chris W, I certainly hope you would still put clear plastic tubing on these valves and collect your fluid in a pickle jar to recycle, instead of spraying it all over the underside of your car and leaving it on the garage or driveway floor to contaminate my drinking water. But if you really want to watch the bubbles, you can sit under the car while your girlfriend pumps the brakes, and you don't even need to turn the wrench. As a bonus, you get to miss the inevitable fight when she lets off the pedal at the wrong moment.

Oh, and Steve- the stainless version of these sure sounds like your rust-proof valve.

Great site, love the tools and the writing, longtime reader, first time commenter...

Maybe I'm a little biased because I sell speed bleeders too (Pegasus Auto Racing Supplies), but I didn't believe in them till I tried them myself.

I've used them on my race car for several seasons now with no problems at all. These are the ball-valve style like you show in the photo, which as mentioned earlier, can only fail by becoming a "dumb" bleeder (or by totally clogging and letting nothing in or out, I suppose) -- but I haven't even had that issue.

There is another design on the market where the screw itself is cut in two, so the seat portion (the pointy end) is separate, with a second seat that seals against the main body of the screw. That one could fail and let pressure out, but I don't know if it's any more likely than a dumb bleeder failing.

Why bleed brakes? Racing, for one -- high brake temperatures boil brake fluid (and, more often, the water trapped in the fluid) and you must let the air (and water) out or your brake pedal will be there just for show.

Trying to keep an old heap running is another reason. I've had plenty of clapped-out street vehicles that have had hydraulic issues. The last step (before putting the wheels back on) is bleeding the brakes.

And just plain vehicle maintenance is another reason. Brake fluid absorbs moisture (except silicone fluids) and must be replaced periodically or your brake lines will rust from the inside out. (This is the most common issue I've had to fix on my beaters.) Some car manufacturers recommend replacing brake fluid every 2 years.

Replacing pads can be easier if you open the bleeder before pushing the pistons back in, but it usually isn't necessary -- though it is a great start towards replacing the brake fluid. But that isn't really where speed bleeders come in handy. Since you're right there, you can just close the bleeder yourself before releasing pressure on the piston.