I was attempting to do a brake flush on my 04 V70 & one of the four (of course the last one!) broke. Luckily it is still seated & the brakes still work. I'm at a cross roads of either replacing the entire caliper, or removing the existing caliper & trying to drill out the broken bleeder valve.

does anyone have any recommendations? One thought was to remove caliper & try & figure out the thread pitch to buy a cheap threaded cap so I don't lose all the new brake fluid. By chance that makes sense, anyone have an idea what size cap I would need?

 

Are you just saying you need to remove/replace the bleeder screw? A few options - you can try a small bolt extractor (its reverse threaded such that you drill a small hole and then screw in and it should grab and pull the old bleeder screw back out) or you can simply replace the caliper. replacement bleeder screws are easily found on parts web sites - or you can consider upgrading to a one person bleeder screw (common to street racers where they boil the brake fluid so they flush regularly between races). Do a simple search on eBay Motors for "volvo bleeder screw" and you'll see plenty of matches. Remains to be seen if its easier to work on the caliper on a bench or on the car - either way you'd need to bleed the brakes afterwards.

 

You could also just leave it since it isn't leaking.

 

my guess is that you are going to have a devil of a time getting the broken bleeder out. If it's rusted in tight, using an extractor is not going to be any different than trying to unscrew the original. With some time and heat, you may be successful so if you don't mind spending additional time on this task, go for it. But if you are loosing patience and need to get the car back on the road, save yourself the time and buy a replacement caliper and call it a day.


I would not recommend trying to get it out without using heat. Heat it up, spray some PB Blaster or other on, heat it up again, repeat about 6x.

 

I've been down this road and you won't get it out short of a machine shop drill press and retap job. The bolt extractor is worthless and will just break inside the broken bleeder.

Junkyard caliper from a yard South of the rust belt is the way to go. The only other thing I might try is a left hand drill bit.

Right now, just leave it alone until you figure out what to do. If you're lucky someone will total your car and you'll never have to deal with it.

 

I drove the car for several months before replacing the entire caliper. I figured by the time I mess around with maybe getting the broken one out, I would be done with the job.