Bleeding breaks on a Polaris

topazal · Mar 12, 2004

Hay guys need some help here. Trying to bleed the breaks on an old Indy I have and not having much luck.

Master cylinder was dry so disassembeled and cleaned. When I removed the brake line from the caliper it still had fluid in it and drained out as I was unscrewing the line. Reinstalled the line and hooked up to master cylinder and filled with fluid. When I tried to bleed system it will not pump up.

I put a 10 inch piece of clear plastic tubing on the bleed port to monitor fluid amount on each bleed cycle. With a pump up and then holding brake lever to the bar I open the bleed port and some fluid comes out and raises up the tube about 1 inch. Keeping the brake lever on the bar I close the bleed port and pump it up again.

Repeat, repear, and repeat.

I get fluid up the tube about 4 inchs or so and at this point there is still no break pressure on the lever it still pulls to the bar and then after a pump up and hold when I open the bleed port the fluid in the tube that I have on the bleed port starts to flow back into the caliper.

Any one here that can tell me what heck is going on here its like the master cylinder is not pumping fluid or something. After 2 bleed cycles I check the master cylinder and the fluid has never dropped below the small port at the bottom of the master cylinder. [

!] What gives[?][?]

snogo_ak · Mar 12, 2004

air leak somewhere? make sure everythin is seald togeteher and connected right and good.

topazal · Mar 12, 2004

I can pull a vacuum on the system by hooking a vacuum pump to the bleed port and it will hold the vaacuum with no loss for 5 min which is the longest I have tried it. I have tried to use the vacuum system to pull fluid through the master cylinder, line and caliper but I am not sure if I am doing it right. I top off the master cylinder and attach the vacuum unit to the bleed port. From the bleed port a line goes to a clear bottle to hold the fluid and then a line to the handheld vacuum pump.
Fluid comes through and I add fluid tell there are no more air bubbles. I then close the bleed port but still no brakes!! The lever will not pump up at all.

xcr440 · Mar 12, 2004

sounds like the master cylinder is junk. I had the same think happen on a truck. Master cylinder would not put pressure up. Put a new one one and I had brakes.

topazal · Mar 13, 2004

well I picked up a used master cylinder and will give that a try it came off an old sled that the breaks still worked on. Let you know.

Well I got it to work and have good breaks now. Problem was with the master cylinder. There are 2 holes in the master cylinder and the one in front of the piston is very small and it was pluged. I used a pin to open up the hole and used my vacuum bleeder to pull air from system while adding fluid and everything is OK now. [8D]

With this small hole pluged when I would try to bleed with the vacuum set up I have it would pull a vacuum and only a small amount of fluid would flow through the system. This would create a high vacuum with in the break system and if the vacuum was lower at the pump that the vacuum within the system then the fluid would be pulled back into the caliper when I would open the bleed port.[}

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Bleeding breaks on a Polaris

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