Dough1397

1. Can brake bleeders be clogged?
After installing new front rotors, pads and lines yesterday, my buddy and I proceeded to get rid of the air in the system. He was in the driver's seat and I was opening the bleeder valves. What I found when I opened some of the bleeders was that brake fluid would come out from the base of the bleeder (below the black rubber thing) rather than out the top where I had a clear tube fitted tightly over the bleeder. This made for a messy bleeding process and difficulty telling if there was air coming out (No bubbles though).

Roughly half of my bleeders have been exposed to salt, water, heat and cold for a number of years without caps on them as they had been damaged and I never managed to find any locally. Is it likely for bleeder valves to become clogged?
PS: I have now gotten them caps and will cover them up once this is resolved.

Edit: Googling this issue earlier resulted in the suggestion to try soaking a bleeder in brake clean, gasoline, or some other solvent.

2. Replacing the bleeders, what about the rubber base?
The bleeders (P/N 44128-80Z0A according to infinitipartszone.com, differs on other sites *facepalm*) show up in the parts drawings, however it is not clear if this is with or without the black rubber bit at the base of the bleeder (circled in pink in the pic).

Dough1397

Wow, no biters! I guess I'll post updates from my readings over the past few days.

1. Bleeders can become clogged over time. Some people have mentioned that they can be cleared out by soaking in your choice of solvent. Additionally using a small drill bit and rotating it in the bleeding passage (by hand) should remove or loosen more stubborn blockages that may have accumulated. A rubber cap will prevent this and highly recommended.

2. The rubber base on the bleeders is part of the rebuild kit that Infiniti/Nissan offers (kit prices are $30-50 for a 2 calipers calipers) (Z1 and ConceptZ have good pics of the rebuilt kit content laid out, thus you know what you're getting). Carlson offers a rebuild kit as well (Carlson 15400 for the front, 15401 for the rear), each kit does one caliper and costs $8-10. Raybestos offers a kit as well, WK2780 for the fronts and is similarly priced to the Carlson kit. Based on the pictures of these three kits, the contents appear to be similar.
Centric offers a rebuild kit, however the pictures available do not show these rubber pieces or rubber caps to cover the bleeders, I would not recommend Centric rebuild kit.

The Akebono bleeders are M10x1.0 threads and roughly 35 mm long. The cost from my dealer is almost $10/each!!! I think this is ridonculous and will be picking up some compatible Carlson H9410 bleeder screws this evening. Rockauto lists them as $1/piece when you buy in packs of 5. I can get them locally for a $2/each and is what I'll be doing.

SwissCheeseHead

iTrader: (6)

Thanks for the info. i would have said something if I would have seen this earlier.

Tommy Gunz PSIU

iTrader: (1)

You may want to look into speed bleeders. They are pricey, but they make bleeding the brakes very easy, and you can do it with one person. There on conflicting opinions on these, but I havent had a problem with mine. i think i paid around $60 for all 8 of them.

Dough1397

Installed the new bleeders all around last night. They fit perfectly! Once again, works in the Akebono calipers.

The old bleeders had some crap stuck between the black rubber bit and the caliper, and down into the top half of the threads. Upon removing the old bleeder entirely, I used a Qtip to clean the seat in the caliper and remove any debris. This is super important, if you don't clean out this opening, then you may end up with debris damaging the seat of the bleeder or caliper.

All four corners were bleed (the order is RR, FL, RL, FR as per the service manual), leak checked one more time and then rubber caps (p/n: ) were installed on all the bleeders.

bigmike35nj

iTrader: (4)

Did you reuse your rubber piece between the caliper and the bleeder? My piece is missing.

TVPostSound

iTrader: (9)

The rubber piece is there to keep crap from building up on the bleeder threads.

Krzysztof47

iTrader: (6)

Sorry to bring this post back from the dead, but thank you for posting about this. I could not get a straight answer on the purpose of the lower rubber bleeder seals.