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The vehicle in question is a 2002 Buick Regal LS, with the 3.8, non-supercharged.
The car was in need of new pads, rotors, and brake fluid, so I swapped the rotors, and more or less following Eric’s video, sucked out most of the old fluid, filled the reservoir up with new, and bled the brakes using the two-man method.
Somewhere along the line, I seem to have gotten some air in the lines, that I just can’t bleed out. The pedal feels pretty firm when the engine is shutoff, but with the engine running, it goes all the way to the floor. We’ve spent hours and hours, and pushed almost half a gallon of fluid through it, and I just can’t get the last bit of air out. I’m assuming that the air is stuck in the ABS module somewhere, as this much bleeding would have worked on every other car I’ve owned, none of which had this type of ABS.
According to the internet, this ABS module is meant to be bled through the use of a special scan tool, which can semi-automatically actuate the module, to help dislodge the air. Does anyone have any experience doing this without said scan tool, and care to offer any suggestions? Alternately, if I’m just screwed, and have to have the car towed somewhere, is this something that only a GM dealer can do, or are independent shops likely to have the appropriate tool?
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A good way to bleed an abs system is to take it for a test drive (if safely possible), find a gravel parking lot and mash on the brakes. The abs pump will cycle and bleed any air out of the modulator.
What probably happend during your bleeding procedure was pushing the brake pedal down past its normal stroke. Sometimes deposits build up in your master cylinder bore and when the piston travels past its normal stroke these deposits will damage the seal around the master cylinder pushrod piston. The only solution here is to rebuild or more preferably replace the master cylinder. Good luck
I don’t think there’s any way to safely drive it. The pedal is firm with the engine off, but it’s very soft with it running. It would be unwise to risk attempting to drive it.
The bad master cylinder had occurred to me, so I tried swapping that out as well. I think that made the air in the lines worse, although I did get some air out when I redid the bleeding.
Having spent literally an entire day, from about 7 AM to nearly 10PM attempting to bleed this stupid thing, I’m just about ready to call AAA, and have them haul it off to the dealer, unless someone knows a trick to manually actuate the ABS module without the dealer scan tool doohickey.
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