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Unpopular opinion: a cheap gravity bleed beats a $180 vacuum bleeder on old rusty brake lines
I'm not saying vacuum bleeders are junk, but on a 2004 Silverado with 210,000 miles and original lines, my buddy's $180 pneumatic bleeder kept pulling air past the threads and I chased bubbles for 40 minutes. We switched to the old two-man gravity method with a clear hose and a Gatorade bottle, and the pedal came back rock hard in about 15 minutes. The difference was the vacuum was sucking air in around the bleeder screws on crusty calipers, which made it look like there was air in the system when there wasn't. With gravity, fluid just pushes down and you see the actual bubbles travel out, no guessing. I've used both methods on plenty of cars and the vacuum is faster on new stuff, but on anything over 10 years old in the rust belt I'm grabbing the bottle every time. Curious if anyone else has run into the phantom air thing with vacuum bleeders, or if I just had a bad seal kit.
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