Meindl Mk IV Build - Graduation

[PeteMeindl]

Hi Pete,

Are you going to put the body on and go through the CT inspection process before sending to Jeff for paint? I thinking of going that route.

Brian

Yeah, that is my plan - try to get everything running and in good shape and registered before I send it off for painting. Hopefully we will get there!

[bobm488]

Did your top hose from the engine come with your kit? I didn't get one, do you know the part number?

[PeteMeindl]

Did your top hose from the engine come with your kit? I didn't get one, do you know the part number?

Yeah, the engine came basically as a completed unit with what you see in my pictures - we really didn't have to add anything beyond the power steering pump. But since it came that way, I don't have any part numbers for individual parts on the engine.

[PeteMeindl]

Hi guys, just a quick update on today's progress. We installed the autometer tach adapter 9117 by cutting the purple coil wire in the harness near the computer and inserting the tach adapter in-between. We weren't quite sure if we had the right wire since the tach adapter instructions are for a 99-04 mustang, not a more recent coyote like what we have, but we found a youtube video (actually in German!) where a guy installs the 9117 on a modern coyote and that helped us narrow it down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REfuItUB6EQ
Danke schon, S550 Guru!

Lo-and-Behold, when we started up the car, it started fine and the tach now works - so that's great news!

At this stage, all our gauges work except for the speedometer/odometer and that still needs to be calibrated while driving, which i may not be able to do until we put on the body given I don't think i can go cart the 2 mile calibration distance without a body in our neighborhood without attracting possible police attention...

So just a couple more steps until the body goes on!
1) try to fix the oil leak on the oil temp sensor
2) rebleed the brakes to see if we can get a less spongy pedal feel. We aren't experienced in this so I'm sure we didn't do a world class job in our first go around...
3) go through and tie up any loose wires in the engine bay and anywhere else

[Papa]

Pete,

You're make great progress!

Dave

[PeteMeindl]

Today we started some initial work on the body - just basically building the hood hinges and then attaching some brackets to the underside of the hood.



It's exciting to be stepping into this next phase as we start with the body! Although we still have a couple things to tie up and I wanted to get your thoughts on two things, both of them are super naive beginner type questions so I apologize!
1) We still getting some oil leaking out of the oil temp sensor shown here:



It's quite tight and I can barely turn it any more. I could crank it just a little bit more but i'm hesitant to put too much force on it. Should I just crank it as hard as I can? One other idea i had was to pull it out and put some white thread seal tape on to make the seal tighter. Would that be a better idea? The downside of that is that the oil will come rushing out... but i think i could just catch that and pour it back in the engine once the oil temp sensor is back in.

2) The brakes feel a little spongy when we go cart. I can lock them up, which is good but i'm wondering if I should re-bleed them. If I do, does that mean I should flush out all the existing brake fluid and start over? Or can I just re-bleed with the fluid in there, making sure that my brake fluid reservoirs always have fluid? Also, I've read you shouldn't use brake fluid that's been opened due to the possibility of moisture absorption. I guess I should follow that? We opened our brake fluid container about half a year ago or so. We used a bike pump and a pressure bleeder valve to do the job last time but I just feel like maybe we didn't do the best job. Maybe I'm just being overly paranoid about the brakes but I guess better safe than sorry...

Thanks a lot for your advice! And again, sorry for all the beginner questions.

[Papa]

Pete,

My recommendation on the leak is to get rid of the Teflon tape on those fittings and go with a PTFE thread sealant like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Permatex-8063...s%2C179&sr=8-3

Dave

[GTBradley]

Hey Pete, I bled my brakes the old fashion way, my son pushing on the pedal and me at the brake with a wrench, tubing and a bottle. We did it and re-did it until they were rock hard and still are to this day, but they are not power brakes. Personally, I wouldn't be too concerned about brake fluid that has been in the bottle with the lid on it. I mean a partially filled gallon can of paint never dries out, so not much going on inside a closed can. And, your bake fluid is sitting in the reservoir with less protection than the can on the shelf.

[PeteMeindl]

Hey Pete, I bled my brakes the old fashion way, my son pushing on the pedal and me at the brake with a wrench, tubing and a bottle. We did it and re-did it until they were rock hard and still are to this day, but they are not power brakes. Personally, I wouldn't be too concerned about brake fluid that has been in the bottle with the lid on it. I mean a partially filled gallon can of paint never dries out, so not much going on inside a closed can. And, your bake fluid is sitting in the reservoir with less protection than the can on the shelf.

Thanks, GT! That makes sense.

[PeteMeindl]

Pete,

My recommendation on the leak is to get rid of the Teflon tape on those fittings and go with a PTFE thread sealant like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Permatex-8063...s%2C179&sr=8-3

Dave

Thanks, Dave! We ordered some up.

[PeteMeindl]

Dave, thanks a lot for your suggestion for the thread sealant for our oil temp sensor to stop it from leaking. We drained the oil and reinstalled the sensor with the thread sealant and that has stopped the leak - good news! Thank you.

We also spent some time working on bleeding the brakes. We're using the pressure bleeder cap from cnc. And we're using a bike pump to pump a few pounds of pressure in the reservior to push the brake fluid through the system. I'd say we did this about 6-8 times for each brake. We got a few bubbles here and there and ended up pushing about 20 oz of brake fluid out of all the brakes (so about 5 oz for each brake) for the entire job. I was really hopeful that the brakes would feel a lot more responsive after this but we took the car out today and they feel pretty much the same. I'm not quite sure if it's the fact that it's been a long time since i've felt manual brakes or, perhaps more likely, if I've done something wrong and the brakes just aren't working exactly right yet... The car certainly stops but it just feels more gradual than a regular car and i can't seem to cause the sort of jarring kind of stop when I slam on the brakes. Part of it just might be that the brand new tires are slippery as sometimes i do lock the wheels which is really all we can ask of the brakes, I guess... Do you guys have any thoughts? Sorry this is a pretty qualitative question...

The good news though was we drove the car in second gear for the first time today on our little 1/10 of a mile street and my wife Sarah drove a lap on the street for the first time too. She had fun!

[chmhasy]

Is there an adjustment on the pedal into the master cylinder, you might have to tighten that up

[GTBradley]

I’m no expert on this braking system, so I’ll stay out of the technical, but as far as feel goes, mine are very hard. So much so, that I’ve thought about posting this same kind of question. The difference for me is, when I get on them hard the back brakes lock and then the front and it stops straight ahead. So judging from your description I think something is not right yet.

Are you following this thread?
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/show...eed-Brake-Help

He appears to have figured it out and it turned out to be the pads, but loads of good input throughout.

[PeteMeindl]

I’m no expert on this braking system, so I’ll stay out of the technical, but as far as feel goes, mine are very hard. So much so, that I’ve thought about posting this same kind of question. The difference for me is, when I get on them hard the back brakes lock and then the front and it stops straight ahead. So judging from your description I think something is not right yet.

Are you following this thread?
https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/show...eed-Brake-Help

He appears to have figured it out and it turned out to be the pads, but loads of good input throughout.

Thanks, Bradley! That thread looks like it's full of good ideas for us. I'll check them out - thank you very much!

[PeteMeindl]

Happy holidays, guys! I hope everyone had a good time with their families. We're trying to figure out why our brakes feel a little soft. We've been trying some of the ideas mentioned in the thread referenced by GTBradley - thanks GT! One funny thing has been going on that I think shows our incompetence and I wanted to run it by the group to see what we might be doing wrong.

So previously, one thing we've done is pressure bleed the brakes, which got a few bubbles out of the lines but even after this, the brakes still felt a little soft. We were wondering where there could be some air stuck in the master cylinders and since pressure bleeding doesn't involve depressing the master cylinders, we thought we'd try bleeding by depressing the brake pedal and seeing how that went.

Well, when we first started to bleed them with the brake pedal, we got a lot of bubbles out - which sounded like great news. We were excited that maybe we were finding the issue. But after a couple depressions of the brake pedal with the bleeder value open during brake pedal depression and the valve closed while releasing the pedal, the brake pedal would basically depress all the way it could without pushing out any more brake fluid. It was as if somehow a whole bunch of air got sucked in from somewhere and the air just compressed and didn't move out any fluid. The reservoirs always seemed to have enough fluid in them and I don't think any air was being sucked back in at the bleeder valve, at least as far as I could tell. So i wasn't sure what was going on. I'm sure I'm making some stupid, amateur mistake...

So this was obviously not good. We switched back to using the pressure bleeder and rebled the brakes. This pushed out some bubbles, no where near what the pedal bleeding did but now, with the pressure bleeding, we were able to get some decent firmness in the brake pedal rather than having it be able to be fully depressed. So that's much better.

We haven't driven the car yet post bleeding as it was raining today so I'm not sure if the brakes are any better. Maybe another round of pressure bleeding will help out. But if anyone has any thoughts on what we might be doing wrong with the brake pedal bleeding, please let us know. Thanks, guys!

[GTBradley]

Pete, I'm sorry if this doesn't help, but I can tell you for certain that bleeding brakes by pressing the pedal does work. Just make sure the person at the brake has the tube submersed in brake fluid in a bottle and the brake reservoir never runs dry. The pedal can't be allowed to come up until the brake bleed screw is closed and pressure should be applied to the pedal before it is opened. It does sound like the system is pulling air in somewhere. Have you checked the master cylinders in the foot box? You should also start at the brake farthest from the master cylinder and work sequentially to the one that is closest.

[PeteMeindl]

Pete, I'm sorry if this doesn't help, but I can tell you for certain that bleeding brakes by pressing the pedal does work. Just make sure the person at the brake has the tube submersed in brake fluid in a bottle and the brake reservoir never runs dry. The pedal can't be allowed to come up until the brake bleed screw is closed and pressure should be applied to the pedal before it is opened. I does sound like the system is pulling air in somewhere. Have you checked the master cylinders in the foot box? You should also start at the brake farthest from the master cylinder and work sequentially to the one that is closest.

Thanks a lot, Bradley! Every comment helps us as we often make the simplest of mistakes so thank you! We've monitored the brake reservoir to make sure it doesn't get too low and we've also tried to make sure no air can get back into the system via the plastic tube by always holding it vertically up to a bottle. But, you know, the tube wasn't always submerged in brake fluid within the bottle. I figured it would be ok as long as the tube always had fluid in it. We will try submerging it as you said - thank you! We've also been moving from the farthest brake to the closest. You mention checking the master cylinder in the footbox - what would I check for there? They don't seem to be leaking or anything but I'm not sure what else I should check. Thanks a lot for your help! I really appreciate it!

[GoDadGo]

Keep Swinging Those Wrench & Remember To Watch Your Pinkies!

[GTBradley]

Thanks a lot, Bradley! Every comment helps us as we often make the simplest of mistakes so thank you! We've monitored the brake reservoir to make sure it doesn't get too low and we've also tried to make sure no air can get back into the system via the plastic tube by always holding it vertically up to a bottle. But, you know, the tube wasn't always submerged in brake fluid within the bottle. I figured it would be ok as long as the tube always had fluid in it. We will try submerging it as you said - thank you! We've also been moving from the farthest brake to the closest. You mention checking the master cylinder in the foot box - what would I check for there? They don't seem to be leaking or anything but I'm not sure what else I should check. Thanks a lot for your help! I really appreciate it!

It sounds to me like your doing it right. I would spend a little time checking the hose routing in the foot box. Make sure your lines from the reservoir to the master cylinders are all secure and tight. Make sure the break lines are connected securely and that nothing has brake fluid on it indicating a leak. It depends on what type of master cylinders you have, but I have read of people having a problem with air getting into a master cylinder because of leak in them. I can't recall what it was, but search that issue. I saw on the FFR you tube series that they have a banjo fitting on the master cylinders now, but you can check how you did yours against it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4QwcS8uT2s

[JimC]

Hey Pete, I'm a newbie about halfway through my build and my first attempt at a post. No previous automotive experience so take what I say with a small grain of salt. I tried bleeding my brakes several times and had trouble. (operator error no doubt) I came across a youtube video that involved placing a small clear plastic tube onto the open bleeder valve and running it to the brake fluid reservoir placing it into the open top, then just pumping the brake to circulate the fluid until all the air is out. Worked great for brakes as well as on my hydraulic clutch

[PeteMeindl]

It sounds to me like your doing it right. I would spend a little time checking the hose routing in the foot box. Make sure your lines from the reservoir to the master cylinders are all secure and tight. Make sure the break lines are connected securely and that nothing has brake fluid on it indicating a leak. It depends on what type of master cylinders you have, but I have read of people having a problem with air getting into a master cylinder because of leak in them. I can't recall what it was, but search that issue. I saw on the FFR you tube series that they have a banjo fitting on the master cylinders now, but you can check how you did yours against it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4QwcS8uT2s

Great - thank you, Bradley! We will check that out. Very helpful, as always!! I feel like we're narrowing in the issue. As usual with us, it takes a while!

[PeteMeindl]

Hey Pete, I'm a newbie about halfway through my build and my first attempt at a post. No previous automotive experience so take what I say with a small grain of salt. I tried bleeding my brakes several times and had trouble. (operator error no doubt) I came across a youtube video that involved placing a small clear plastic tube onto the open bleeder valve and running it to the brake fluid reservoir placing it into the open top, then just pumping the brake to circulate the fluid until all the air is out. Worked great for brakes as well as on my hydraulic clutch

Thanks, Jim! I appreciate being the first post! What you said makes sense. We will give that one a try. Thank you very much!

[PeteMeindl]

I read on Bradley's thread the other day about how his clutch cable broke:

https://thefactoryfiveforum.com/show...h-cable/page11

I went out and looked at our car and we had basically installed ours the same way as Bradley and thus were likely headed for a broken clutch cable had we not read his thread.

Thanks for posting the issue and the fix, Bradley! You saved us from needing a tow down the road!

[GTBradley]

Thanks for calling out my big stupid mistake Pete! Just kidding. So happy someone else could benefit from that mistake I made. I’ll put more up when I finally get my new cable from Forte’s.

On the brakes issue, I was looking at your photo album for master cylinder pictures and saw that your balance bar has a healthy bit of bias to it. I’m not saying it’s too much, but maybe try evening the bar up just for bleeding the system again and when you have the problem solved set the bias again. Also, and sorry if I missed this in your posts, did you do the bench bleed for the masters? It can be done on the car. If all this fails I would call FFR and the brake manufacturer as it may be a bad master.

[PeteMeindl]

Thanks for calling out my big stupid mistake Pete! Just kidding. So happy someone else could benefit from that mistake I made. I’ll put more up when I finally get my new cable from Forte’s.

On the brakes issue, I was looking at your photo album for master cylinder pictures and saw that your balance bar has a healthy bit of bias to it. I’m not saying it’s too much, but maybe try evening the bar up just for bleeding the system again and when you have the problem solved set the bias again. Also, and sorry if I missed this in your posts, did you do the bench bleed for the masters? It can be done on the car. If all this fails I would call FFR and the brake manufacturer as it may be a bad master.

Thanks, Bradley! Yeah, great point on our balance bar. We noticed it looked extreme too and we've shifted it to be more normalized in our latest round of bleeding. What we haven't done, however, is bench bleed the master cylinders - so we need to do that! Thank you! So in reading a little about that, is this what we do: connect the output of the master cylinders to a tube and feed that back to the brake fluid reservoir and then pump the brakes? Sorry for the stupid question, but to do this, do we get some sort of fitting to screw into the output of the MC and that connects to a plastic tube? This could be the answer - Thanks a lot!

[Papa]

Thanks, Bradley! Yeah, great point on our balance bar. We noticed it looked extreme too and we've shifted it to be more normalized in our latest round of bleeding. What we haven't done, however, is bench bleed the master cylinders - so we need to do that! Thank you! So in reading a little about that, is this what we do: connect the output of the master cylinders to a tube and feed that back to the brake fluid reservoir and then pump the brakes? Sorry for the stupid question, but to do this, do we get some sort of fitting to screw into the output of the MC and that connects to a plastic tube? This could be the answer - Thanks a lot!

Pete,

You have the procedure right. I made a couple of pieces of tubing from piece of unused brake line (I made mine from a roll of Nickel Copper) and flared one end and added a fifing to thread onto the MC.

Dave

[edwardb]

Thanks, Bradley! Yeah, great point on our balance bar. We noticed it looked extreme too and we've shifted it to be more normalized in our latest round of bleeding. What we haven't done, however, is bench bleed the master cylinders - so we need to do that! Thank you! So in reading a little about that, is this what we do: connect the output of the master cylinders to a tube and feed that back to the brake fluid reservoir and then pump the brakes? Sorry for the stupid question, but to do this, do we get some sort of fitting to screw into the output of the MC and that connects to a plastic tube? This could be the answer - Thanks a lot!

As Dave (Papa) said, that's the right process for bench bleeding. I assume you realize if you do this then you're back at the beginning for the whole bleeding process. So bench bleed, then bleed each wheel starting with the farthest first. If you have normal brake line routing, the order would be RH rear, LH rear, RH front, LH front. I've had great luck with pressure bleeding. Some have suggested bench bleeding isn't necessary with pressure bleeding. But I still do it anyway, just to be sure. Hard pedal very time. I'd personally avoid the traditional push pedal down while opening and closing the bleeder process for the double master cylinder Wilwood setup. Many have had issues doing it that way. Factory Five (and others) recommend doing the front and rear at the same time when using that method. I haven't tried it.

[PeteMeindl]

Pete,

You have the procedure right. I made a couple of pieces of tubing from piece of unused brake line (I made mine from a roll of Nickel Copper) and flared one end and added a fifing to thread onto the MC.

Dave

Ah - great idea, Dave! That will work well - thanks a lot! We'll try it out this weekend - I'm feeling optimistic!

[PeteMeindl]

As Dave (Papa) said, that's the right process for bench bleeding. I assume you realize if you do this then you're back at the beginning for the whole bleeding process. So bench bleed, then bleed each wheel starting with the farthest first. If you have normal brake line routing, the order would be RH rear, LH rear, RH front, LH front. I've had great luck with pressure bleeding. Some have suggested bench bleeding isn't necessary with pressure bleeding. But I still do it anyway, just to be sure. Hard pedal very time. I'd personally avoid the traditional push pedal down while opening and closing the bleeder process for the double master cylinder Wilwood setup. Many have had issues doing it that way. Factory Five (and others) recommend doing the front and rear at the same time when using that method. I haven't tried it.

Thanks, Paul. Got it. We'll do the master cylinders first and then redo all the brakes. With you you, Dave, and Bradley helping us, I'm feeling good about our prospects!

[GTBradley]

What they said, Pete. Personally, I got it done the same way I’ve always done brakes and only did the the old-fashioned bleed at each wheel. I guess I got lucky. I don’t think your balance bar is extreme, in fact, it looks like mine does, but it might help to even it for bleeding. I hope this works for you and don’t actually have a bad master, but if you end up replacing it shouldn’t be too bad.

[initiator]

If you have spare tubing, fittings (do both master cylinders at the same time), and a flaring tool, then hard line is a great way to do it. Not having these things, I went to the auto parts store and bought two of their one-person bleed kits for not much. Came with a variety of flexible plastic lines, a bleed catch bottle with magnet, and fittings to mate with master cylinders and bleed valves. 'Bench bleeding' (not really, you don't remove them from the car) the masters followed by pressure bleeding the rest of the system made a huge difference in brake pedal stiffness for me. Just don't move the brake pedal while you're doing the pressure bleed.

[PeteMeindl]

If you have spare tubing, fittings (do both master cylinders at the same time), and a flaring tool, then hard line is a great way to do it. Not having these things, I went to the auto parts store and bought two of their one-person bleed kits for not much. Came with a variety of flexible plastic lines, a bleed catch bottle with magnet, and fittings to mate with master cylinders and bleed valves. 'Bench bleeding' (not really, you don't remove them from the car) the masters followed by pressure bleeding the rest of the system made a huge difference in brake pedal stiffness for me. Just don't move the brake pedal while you're doing the pressure bleed.

Thanks, Initiator! Yeah, this is all coming together and finally making sense to me - hoping to get this done this weekend. Thanks!

[Pat427]

I did the same thing and it seemed to work well for me.

Hey Pete, I'm a newbie about halfway through my build and my first attempt at a post. No previous automotive experience so take what I say with a small grain of salt. I tried bleeding my brakes several times and had trouble. (operator error no doubt) I came across a youtube video that involved placing a small clear plastic tube onto the open bleeder valve and running it to the brake fluid reservoir placing it into the open top, then just pumping the brake to circulate the fluid until all the air is out. Worked great for brakes as well as on my hydraulic clutch

[PeteMeindl]

Hi guys - Thanks again for everyone's help and advice on our issues with our brakes. This weekend we bench bled the master cylinders while they are still on the car, something we've never done before. Wow - it wasn't easy trying to reach into the area above the driver footbox and swap out the brakes lines that attach to the master cylinders! But eventually we got it and were able to use the brake pedal to cycle fluid through, pushing the pedal maybe 100 times, until there were no more bubbles in the tube going from the output of the master cylinder back into the brake fluid reservoir. That was good news! We then rebled the brakes themselves with a pressure bleeder, at each of the four brakes and went out and drove the car. We were excited and hoping for good results! Unfortunately, it felt about the same... still feels spongy and doesn't stop all that well.

My guess is we're doing some boneheaded rookie thing and just somehow not getting the air out. Today Sarah asked the mechanic about it at our local gas station and he mentioned it's often helpful to jack up the rear of the car when you're doing the rear of the car and then switch it up and jack up the front when doing the front. Getting gravity to help up out! So we'll try that, hopefully this weekend. He also mentioned he sometimes goes through several large bottles of brake fluid when bleeding - so maybe we aren't pumping enough fluid through to get all the air out. I'd say, in total, when we bled all four brakes we had about 1/2 a liter of fluid come out. So maybe that's part of the problem, too.

Thanks again for all the good tips, guys! We'll keep on plugging away!

[initiator]

After you're done bleeding, push on the brake pedal about 50% and then yank the parking brake several times. That is supposed to set the brake piston distance from the disc, so they don't have to travel too far before applying pressure to the disc.

[PeteMeindl]

After you're done bleeding, push on the brake pedal about 50% and then yank the parking brake several times. That is supposed to set the brake piston distance from the disc, so they don't have to travel too far before applying pressure to the disc.

Thanks, Initiator - I'll do that. I read about that in the thread Bradley recommended, too, I believe. Not something I would've figured out on my own, that's for sure. Thanks!

[PeteMeindl]

This weekend we attempted to bleed our brakes again in order to get rid of the spongy feeling we have when pushing our pedal. A local mechanic mentioned that it's sometimes helpful to jack up the axle with the brakes you're currently bleeding to let gravity help force the air up so we started with the rear of the car and jacked that up while keeping the front wheels on the ground. For this bleeding session, we tried using the old fashioned push-the-brake-pedal method.

Unfortunately, we ran into some trouble and i think maybe we're getting air into the brake lines somewhere. Here's what happened. Sarah was at the brake pedal and I was at the brake caliper with a hose going from the bleeder screw on the right rear caliper up into a bottle with brake fluid. Sarah put a little pressure on the brake, I opened up the bleeder screw and fluid started coming out into the tube with a few small bubbles. The brake pedal started to go down more until it was fully depressed, then I shut off the bleeder screw and Sarah would release the brake pedal. All good so far, I think.

We did this a few times and things seemed ok, although less and less brake fluid was coming out each time we did this until finally no new brake fluid would come out during and entire cycle. In fact, even with bleeder screw was closed, you could now completely depress the brake pedal all the way down… We checked the fluid reservoir and we still had plenty of fluid in there.

So I’m not completely sure, but I think somehow we are pulling air in the system from somewhere as we were trying to bleed the system and somehow we’re not pulling brake fluid in from the reservoir, as we would like to. Does that make sense to you guys? We went along all the connections to check how tight they are and things seemed ok, I think. Hmmmm….

[D02G]

This weekend we attempted to bleed our brakes again in order to get rid of the spongy feeling we have when pushing our pedal. A local mechanic mentioned that it's sometimes helpful to jack up the axle with the brakes you're currently bleeding to let gravity help force the air up so we started with the rear of the car and jacked that up while keeping the front wheels on the ground. For this bleeding session, we tried using the old fashioned push-the-brake-pedal method.

Unfortunately, we ran into some trouble and i think maybe we're getting air into the brake lines somewhere. Here's what happened. Sarah was at the brake pedal and I was at the brake caliper with a hose going from the bleeder screw on the right rear caliper up into a bottle with brake fluid. Sarah put a little pressure on the brake, I opened up the bleeder screw and fluid started coming out into the tube with a few small bubbles. The brake pedal started to go down more until it was fully depressed, then I shut off the bleeder screw and Sarah would release the brake pedal. All good so far, I think.

We did this a few times and things seemed ok, although less and less brake fluid was coming out each time we did this until finally no new brake fluid would come out during and entire cycle. In fact, even with bleeder screw was closed, you could now completely depress the brake pedal all the way down… We checked the fluid reservoir and we still had plenty of fluid in there.

So I’m not completely sure, but I think somehow we are pulling air in the system from somewhere as we were trying to bleed the system and somehow we’re not pulling brake fluid in from the reservoir, as we would like to. Does that make sense to you guys? We went along all the connections to check how tight they are and things seemed ok, I think. Hmmmm….

Pete, Obviously something isn't right. Are you sure you were checking the correct reservoir for fluid?

[initiator]

Hard to picture a scenario where the brake system would stop pumping fluid while there's still a supply in the reservoir. Only thing I can imagine is a blockage or failure in the master cylinder.

Maybe try bleeding the master cylinder again to see if fluid comes out from there? If that works and you still can't get fluid out of the caliper bleed port, maybe there is a blockage between the two.

[Railroad]

Is it possible the cap is not vented and displacement of fluid created a vacuum in the reservoir?