bleeding brakes on '90 240DL
 

Hello,

I've searched for this and found a lot of helpful threads, but none answer the questions that I have precisely enough as I am very new to this and paranoid about doing it right.

I bled my brakes with a friend's help tonight but it didn't take care of my problem. We worked from farthest away from the MC to closest. I opened the valves, he braked and when there was only fluid in the line I closed the valve and he released the brake.

Here are my questions:
1. I bought the car used with no owner's manual. How do I find out if it has ABS or not (I don't think it does, but am not positive)?
2. Does the car need to be running when bleeding the brakes?
3. How many valves are there on the front calipers, and do they need to be opened all at once?
4. Was I right to start farthest from the MC or is there another order to follow?
5. When bleeding, if the tube is in liquid is it OK to let the brake up a little and then push without closing the valve or is it imperative to close the valve each time the brake is let up even just a little?

I may actually have more questions, but that's all I can think of for now.

Thanks in advance for any help!

well there are outside and inside valves on each caliper, start with the outside one on the passenger rear corner then the inside, then go to the drivers rear and do the same thing, then passenger front, then drivers front. Then I'm not sure if this is the case on all 240 braking systems but there is bleed valve on the distribution block on mine too.

Thanks very much for the reply, adub. I didn't realise there was more than one valve on all of the calipers!

So do you know if on the front calipers any of the valves need to be opened at the same time. I read a thread to that effect on another volvo forum (I've been trying to learn and reading a lot of different forums - I think it was on brickboard, not sure though.)

cheers,
derek

Not that I'm aware of, I was always told to open the outside one first. Then the inside one. Also I saw you had a question about closing the valves between pedal pushes, I hear its good practice but if there is fluid in the line and no air near the nipple you shouldn't worry.

Thanks again adub! I'll post back tomorrow after I have redone it - making sure to empty all the valves.

IF your car has ABS, there should only be one brake line to the front caliper. NON ABS has two lines to the front. Also there will be a black box in the engine bay where the brake lines go to.

I know nothing about ABS. I think it started in '91 on the 240.

For non-ABS 240s, the front calipers have three bleeder valves each. The rear calipers have only one bleeder valve each. The bleeding sequence is correct as described in Haynes: 1) left rear, 2) left front upper, 3) right front upper, 4) right rear, 5) right front outer, 6) right front lower inner, 7) left front outer, 8) left front lower inner.

I would not use the brake pedal at all when bleeding the system, unless it was a new master cylinder. I use the Motive Power Bleeder and it works well.