Tom's Brake Bleeder Contraption

OK, I just love coming up with contraptions. It’s a great way to be both clever and cheap. Besides, there’s a job to be accomplished. Over the years, I have always used a pump style oil can to fill the brake systems on RV’s from the bleeder valve. This involved hooking up the can with a plastic line to the brake bleeder valve under the wheel cylinder and adding brake fluid without introducing air. It’s sometimes tough to find an oil can that can pump just fluid without air.

Peter Fruehling and I had just finished installing his brake system and needed to fill it. I decided this time to find another method. Buying a pressure bleeder was out of the question due to my cheapness. Eighty-five bucks was too much. I thought, “Why not roll my own?” After much searching, I found the perfect container. A small Vlasic Sweet Relish jar in my fridge would fit the bill fine. Now I’m sure a regular relish jar would work just as good, but I have my standards. After dumping the contents into a convenient Tupperware container and thoroughly cleaning the jar, I started the actual construction.

Now I know that most RV builders will, by this stage of construction, have a few extra parts lying around. I scrounged up two -3 bulkhead fittings with the associated B-nuts and sleeves from my excess stuff drawer. I then drilled two 3/8 holes into the jar lid and installed the bulkhead fittings. On fitting #1, I attached a 3/16 aluminum tube that extended to the bottom of the jar with just a bit of clearance off the bottom then added a piece of aluminum tubing to the top side. On fitting #2, I attached a short piece of aluminum tubing just to the top. I then attached a 3/16 plastic line from fitting #1 to the brake bleeder valve.

The way a pressure bleeder works is applying air to the “can” from one line which will force the fluid out the other line. Pretty simple. The risky part for me was how to add the pressurized air. Putting a twist type valve inline would have worked great, but I didn’t have one of those in my junk drawer. Cheapness prevailed. I stuck a piece of the milky white tubing that is included in the RV kit onto the inlet side of the jar to act as an interconnect for a regular air sprayer. These sprayers are not known for their precise metering of air, but what the heck. The worse that would happen is I over pressurized the jar and brake fluid would spray all over Peters fuselage and the hangar floor. I was OK with that since it wasn’t my fuselage or hangar floor!

The moment came, Peter and I set up. I practiced controlling the air flow and then gave it a whirl. It worked like a charm. The fittings and related parts are about $9 if you don’t have any. The Vlasic Sweet Relish jar was about $1.69 at your local grocer and you still get the relish. Pretty darn sweet.