How to make your own power bleeder to bleed ABS brakes on any car.
I show how I made a DIY power pressure brake bleeder to finish bleeding the brakes on a 2008 Ford Crown Victoria. After running the automated bleed process on my OBDII scan tool I still needed to finish manually bleeding the brake lines and finish removing all the air from the brake system. This homemade power bleeder worked absolutely terrific for me with no problems at all. Nice firm pedal, no mushy pedal here! Again, I used this power bleeder ALONG WITH an OBDII scan tool to completely bleed the trapped air out of the ABS module. I have found that I need both (scan tool and power bleeder) to completely remove all air from the brake system. Your mileage may vary, however.
The vehicle that I used this tool to bleed was a 2008 Ford Crown Victoria but this method should work on just about any make/model of vehicle as long as you have the correct master cylinder adapter.
I made a youtube video to show how an affordable ABS scan tool can auto bleed ABS brake systems and ABS module just like a pro scanner. You don’t need a 5 or 10 thousand dollar GM Tech2 or Snap On diagnostic scanner (or any other high end vehicle manufacturer specific diagnostic scan tool) to preform an auto bleed on an ABS brake system. https://youtu.be/fUqmBqYIEAE
While searching online to find this affordable solution, I also found a few other low priced ABS scan tools that are supposed to also do an auto bleed. They are, The Foxwell NT630 Plus: And the OTC 3210: Please do your own research to be sure these scanners will work with your vehicle. The Foxwell seemed to be the cheapest, and the OTC was the most expensive. TO ME, the Autel seemed to be the best decision because it wasn’t the most expensive, but at least it was from a company that I had heard of before. OTC is a good, well known brand (Originally from my home state) but because of that, it seems that you are somewhat paying for the name. The Autel MaxiCheck Pro was middle ground for me. After using it to bleed my brakes, I can say that I am very happy with my purchase. I’m sure there are others out there but at the time of my YouTube video, these seemed to be the cheapest three (that I could find) with auto bleed capability.
It’s important to keep in mind that not every make and model of vehicle is capable of performing an auto bleed. The vehicle must have that function programmed into the ECM to begin with. It is the computer (ECM) in the vehicle that is actually performing the function, the Autel MaxiCheck Pro OBDII scan tool (or any other brand of scan tool) is only commanding the vehicle’s computer to run the auto bleed. The Scan tool itself is not doing anything other than commanding the auto bleed function that is programmed into the vehicle’s ECM from the factory. I suggest doing a google search for your make and model to see if your vehicle has the ability to auto bleed the ABS brake system before you buy a scanner.
And just to be clear…. I manually bled fluid from all four wheels before AND after performing an auto bleed with the scan tool. Once the air is moved out of the ABS module, (with scan tool) it must then be physically bled out of the system at each wheel. I did this entire process twice. And another side note: I use the Motive Products Power Bleeder to bleed my brakes. All other forms of bleeding may work eventually, but using a power bleeder (any brand) is absolutely the quickest, easiest and most reliable way to remove air from the brake system…. Your mileage may vary.
Check out my video below on YouTube to see how easy it was to perform an auto bleed on my 2006 GMC Sierra 1500.
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