Autonerdz forums

Hello everyone, I had an experience yesterday that I thought I should share, maybe prevent a costly accident and /or an unhappy customer.

A couple of months ago I bought the Mityvac brake pressure bleeder, works well and has a nice selection of adapters, I had a couple minor leaks to sort out with it but until yesterday no big deal. Yesterday I was using it on an Mazda 6, I was in the rf wheelwell bleeding the caliper and all of a sudden I hear a sound like a water fountain, I looked up and there was a 3/8 inch stream of brake fluid shooting 8 ft into the air and spraying the front of the mazda and my tool cart. I got the flow stopped and hosed everything down with the water hose quickly and luckily no real damage done but it could have been a disaster.

If any of you have this model bleeder please check the hose particularly where the quick connect plugs into the top of the pump, I am not sure whether mine should have been clamped and wasn't or if the manufacturer expected the tight coils on the anti kink spring to be a sufficient  clamp but it wasn't. I only had the pressure pumped to 10 psi when I was bleeding the mazda.

I attached some pics of the bleeder with the failed hose and the other of the hose with a fuel line clamp on it, I was able to slide the spring down to the clamp and it still functions to prevent the hose from kinking like it was intended.

Hope this saves someone else a mess like I had.

I like my old gravity feed supply of fluid type, that vacuum pulls the fluid through the caliper bleeders myself.
Glad you got the fluid off quick

Dan W. wrote on Jan 26^th, 2017 at 9:31am:


Good move

daveyK wrote on Jan 26^th, 2017 at 4:18pm:


I believe it is a hand pump to pressure the unit. I have one for putting trans fluid in the automatics with the para scope style oil pan and no dipstick.

Thanks Dan and you too Spence 

JohnN wrote on Jan 28^th, 2017 at 7:30pm:


Hi John, do you mean it was aerating the fluid or are you referring to the air that is in the hose after it has been sitting a bit. I will have to watch for that. The air pockets in the hose don't seem cause any trouble but I haven't had any issues with mine aerating the fluid itself it's always clear in the hose after the initial rush of fluid to the vehicles reservoir.  I will have to keep an eye out for that, I have only used mine half a dozen times or so as of yet.