This is about my 2012 highlander with 140k miles. Brake fluid was original so in a moment of automotive sympathy I decided to flush and fill the brakes.
Back brakes went smoothly but BOTH front caliper bleeder screws broke off. This is a southern car in GA so broken bolts aren't common for me.
Called my mechanic friend who came over and proceeded to break an extractor inside both of them. He suggests I buy two reman calipers next because he can't keep breaking tools and he also can't drill through the hardened steel extractors. I'm resigned to doing this, despite the surprise expense. Car is a ten year old anvil.
WWGRMD?
Is there enough exposed of the broken bits to try welding a piece of steel onto the top of the broken extractor and/or bleeder? I've had success with this sometimes, I think primarily because of the intense heat, and secondarily because of the added leverage once cooled. If not, I'd buy new calipers.
Aloy
New Reader
6/5/22 8:42 p.m.
Sounds like a Northern Ohio story..... easier and faster just to get remanufactured calipers
Not enough there to weld to so reman calipers I guess. RA much cheaper thank the FLAPS but the convenience of local core exchange refund is worth the difference in cost.
Propane torch might have been more useful than PB blaster. Live and learn.
OHSCrifle said:
Not enough there to weld to so reman calipers I guess. RA much cheaper thank the FLAPS but the convenience of local core exchange refund is worth the difference in cost.
Propane torch might have been more useful than PB blaster. Live and learn.
For future reference, heat then penetrating lube then when in doubt whack the bleeder with a big hammer once straight on before trying to remove it.
They break non stop up here in the rust belt. You'll notice many reman calipers have oversized threads in the bleeder because they often damage the housing when removing the old bleeder on the production line.
Go buy the appropriate sized E-Z-Out. They're a left handed helix with sharp corners that dig into the bleeder. Wind it out.
I did this on my old Suburban a few years ago and fought with drilling/extractors/breakage/pain for a couple of hours. Whined about it here and was immediately told to just go buy new calipers.
Did that and life was MUCH better.
I've had luck using torx screw bits as extractors with broken bleeders. I'll grind off the bleeder remains flush with the caliper then hammer in the appropriate sized torx bit and see if it works, if it doesn't they tend to just spin rather than break off. At that point I'll drill it out slightly larger and tap in the next size up bit and keep going from there. I'd say that works 80% of the time for me.
The other option if you want to re-use a caliper is to drill out the bleeder fully, tap it to 1/8 NPT and screw one of these in - https://www.wilwood.com/linekits/LineKitsProd?itemno=220-0627
When it's all said and done, don't be the guy over torquing those little things in there or you'll be extracting it again the next time.
914Driver said:
Go buy the appropriate sized E-Z-Out. They're a left handed helix with sharp corners that dig into the bleeder. Wind it out.
That's what broke off in one of them.
1SlowVW said:
OHSCrifle said:
Not enough there to weld to so reman calipers I guess. RA much cheaper thank the FLAPS but the convenience of local core exchange refund is worth the difference in cost.
Propane torch might have been more useful than PB blaster. Live and learn.
For future reference, heat then penetrating lube then when in doubt whack the bleeder with a big hammer once straight on before trying to remove it.
They break non stop up here in the rust belt. You'll notice many reman calipers have oversized threads in the bleeder because they often damage the housing when removing the old bleeder on the production line.
Wait what? Do the reman calipers not have same threads as the OEM bleeder screw? (Or maybe no big deal since they should come with a screw).
OHSCrifle said:
1SlowVW said:
OHSCrifle said:
Not enough there to weld to so reman calipers I guess. RA much cheaper thank the FLAPS but the convenience of local core exchange refund is worth the difference in cost.
Propane torch might have been more useful than PB blaster. Live and learn.
For future reference, heat then penetrating lube then when in doubt whack the bleeder with a big hammer once straight on before trying to remove it.
They break non stop up here in the rust belt. You'll notice many reman calipers have oversized threads in the bleeder because they often damage the housing when removing the old bleeder on the production line.
Wait what? Do the reman calipers not have same threads as the OEM bleeder screw? (Or maybe no big deal since they should come with a screw).
They come with new bleeders installed but a lot of the time the hole has been drilled and re-threaded to take a larger diameter bleeder screw. No affect on performance it just means the company doing the remanufacturing gets to save the housing/core.
I've had surprisingly good luck using my 3/8" impact to loosen them without snapping them off. I had to loosen 4 of them last weekend on the front of a 1979 International 1754 that hasn't had working brakes in 15 years. One stripped the hex using a wrench. I tapped a socket on it and hit it with the impact and it popped loose. I hit the rest of them with the impact and they all came loose with a little persuasion.
The G35 had one fail. I ended up drilling and tapping the caliper to install a Dorman bleeder repair kit. The Brembo calipers for it are about $400 each. The repair kits work very well if you don't want to replace an expensive caliper.
If you just want to get them bled and not buy new calipers you can unbolt the caliper and hold it in a position so the banjo bolt is the highest point. Crack the banjo bolt loose about a half turn and let it bleed from there. That's fine if you are gravity bleeding, if you are pressure bleeding you need to use a c-clamp to hold the piston in. You will want to crack the banjo bolt loose while the caliper is still bolted on then just make it barely snug before removal, otherwise its really tough to hold the caliper tight enough to get the bolt loose after the caliper is off. I'm from ohio so I've encountered a few broken bleeders in my day.
Second car I ever worked on was my sisters '79 LeSaber. Same thing. Broke dads extractor and feared for my life. FLAPS had one on the shelf for $23. Which was a lot of money when I was 18. Lesson learned. Hated bleeding brakes ever since.
914Driver said:
In reply to OHSCrifle :
it all seemed easy enough when I bought 3 replacement OE bleeder screws - with the expectation the 2 broken ones could be extracted. Bought 3 just in case.... and now I've bought calipers too so the screws will go in the drawer with so many other life's lessons.
