Had our 2016 Note nearly 3 years now. No indication of any brake fluid change in the past , so decided to stop faffing about & do it myself.
I've had over the years varied experiences with brake bleeding/ fluid changing ( mainly bad but you learn from each experience) & tried various brake bleeders. So lately I've just been using the gravity method. Takes way longer , but you're not risking air getting in or mullaring the master cylinder piston ( been there , done it ). The 2 person method would involve me risking ' er indoors pumping the pedal & actually listening to what I'm saying over an extended period of time . Couldn't see that being successful either....
Anyway , I looked at the Sealey piston type bottles. Push the fluid through. Unfortunately, the Note comes with a bayonet type cap , & the Sealey kit doesn't have one as standard.
Next I bought a cheap vacuum bleeder for £15 . These seem to be popular on You Tube , worth a try . Set it up , seems to hold vacuum.
Unfortunately the design of the rear of the brake drum set up means there's a ridge protruding part way over the bleed nipple . The nipple is also placed right next to the hand brake cable. So I could get the cap of the vacuum bleeder over the nipple , but it covered it completely. Nowhere to put the spanner on . Tried it without the cap , just the tube , now it's too lose , not holding pressure. Tried cable tying it , still no good .
Anyway, ended up going back to the old faithful, the Gunsons one man bleeder .
I wanted to extract as much dirty fluid from the master cylinder before starting . Nissan have provided a small access panel you can detach to access the cylinder. However , I couldn't get the little blue filter out, so binned that idea . Got it out later with a pick , but was too late then .
Started gravity bleeding , but rain was threatening. Decided to just have nipple open quarter turn max , and pumped brake pedal , but used very short repetitive strokes , to hopefully protect master cylinder rubbers .
Was unsure how much fluid to do , so made sure on the longest run ( nearside rear ) that I put 500ml clean fluid through. In total got out just under a litre of dirty fluid.
Tentatively went for a test drive , all seems good . Always felt the brakes felt a bit wooden , seem to feel slightly better now.
Took maybe 5 hours with faffing about , and cost me a tenner.
But worth doing .
Now if I could only find that annoying knocking noise from the rear 🙄
I've had over the years varied experiences with brake bleeding/ fluid changing ( mainly bad but you learn from each experience) & tried various brake bleeders. So lately I've just been using the gravity method. Takes way longer , but you're not risking air getting in or mullaring the master cylinder piston ( been there , done it ). The 2 person method would involve me risking ' er indoors pumping the pedal & actually listening to what I'm saying over an extended period of time . Couldn't see that being successful either....
Anyway , I looked at the Sealey piston type bottles. Push the fluid through. Unfortunately, the Note comes with a bayonet type cap , & the Sealey kit doesn't have one as standard.
Next I bought a cheap vacuum bleeder for £15 . These seem to be popular on You Tube , worth a try . Set it up , seems to hold vacuum.
Unfortunately the design of the rear of the brake drum set up means there's a ridge protruding part way over the bleed nipple . The nipple is also placed right next to the hand brake cable. So I could get the cap of the vacuum bleeder over the nipple , but it covered it completely. Nowhere to put the spanner on . Tried it without the cap , just the tube , now it's too lose , not holding pressure. Tried cable tying it , still no good .
Anyway, ended up going back to the old faithful, the Gunsons one man bleeder .
I wanted to extract as much dirty fluid from the master cylinder before starting . Nissan have provided a small access panel you can detach to access the cylinder. However , I couldn't get the little blue filter out, so binned that idea . Got it out later with a pick , but was too late then .
Started gravity bleeding , but rain was threatening. Decided to just have nipple open quarter turn max , and pumped brake pedal , but used very short repetitive strokes , to hopefully protect master cylinder rubbers .
Was unsure how much fluid to do , so made sure on the longest run ( nearside rear ) that I put 500ml clean fluid through. In total got out just under a litre of dirty fluid.
Tentatively went for a test drive , all seems good . Always felt the brakes felt a bit wooden , seem to feel slightly better now.
Took maybe 5 hours with faffing about , and cost me a tenner.
But worth doing .
Now if I could only find that annoying knocking noise from the rear 🙄
