In light of the vendor announcement that greeted me on my visit to NAM this morning, I thought I'd share a recent project of mine.

I've had a Motive Power Bleeder for about a year, and in that time I've service my MINI a couple of times, my wife's New Beetle, and my Miata. Because I have different cars, I need different adapters. And because I hate having to turn the bottle while threading the cap, I end up getting pretty angry with the whole danged setup.

So I was in the shed a couple of weeks ago getting ready to swap fluid in the Miata, which meant an adapter swap, when I realized the threading on the Power Bleeder looked identical to the 1/4" air-hose adapter threads. Turns out it is identical.

I headed out to Lowe's, picked up a male-threaded quick-release female coupler and 3 female-threaded male couplers, tossed in some plumber's tape, and voila: a simple way to swap caps and thread them on without having to spin the bottle. I figure it should be safe since air hoses are generally rated to 300psi, and I never exceed 15psi on the Power Bleeder.

I'll post pictures if anybody's interested.

Now if I could just find a way to keep the Miata's adapter from leaking out around the cap...

 

That's a great idea. I'd love to see some pictures of what you are describing.

 

Here's a shot of the bleeder and all 3 adapters:




And here it is attached to my custom Miata adapter:




Click for larger pictures.

Enjoy!

 

Please post pictures. As cool as the power bleeder is, I was a bit taken back when I realized you had to turn the bottle while threading the cap.
Edit: oops, you posted pictures while I was posting this ... never mind

 

Thanks for the pictures.

I have a Miata too. Where did you source the cap that fits the Miata brake & clutch masters?

 

Yeah, about that Miata cap...

I bought the cap from Mazda Motorsports, drilled a hole, put some rubber washers around it, and added a hose. Simple, right? Except the brake reservoir isn't sealed by the cap: it's sealed by a fitting inside the cap.

My first attempt leaked like a sieve at 5psi. It was actually worse than using the "universal" adapter, which deforms the plastic reservoir when you tighten the clamps. I went back and added all the inner bits of the cap, but had no real way of sealing it all up, so that leaked, too.

My next trick will be to find and cut a rubber gasket to fit the rim of the reservoir, but I don't have high hopes there, either.

I just read on the Spec Miata forum today, though, that if you keep the bleeder empty, and only use it for pressure, my special cap will work. I'll have to remove it frequently to add more fluid, but it will work.

And there again, having to remove it frequently will make my little mod worthwhile.

I absolutely hate changing brake fluid in that car...