[V8] brake bleeding

[Seamus O'Carey]

I'm still at a loss on this bleeding thing. I've read the brake section of
the manual about 5 times, but since I still seem to be doing something
wrong, I must have missed something.

What is the proper method of bleeding the brakes? Do I have to do something
with the ABS system or should I be able to just pull the air through with a
vacuum bleeder at the calipers? Car running or not?

If you want more info, here's the background story:
I got the car with brake problems and even though I drove it home (~90
miles), the brakes have always been squishy and the light has always been
on.

The previous owner replaced the bomb, but it didn't help. I replaced the
servo (as well as the rear calipers and all 4 pads and rotors) and then bled
the calipers, but the pedal was still a bit soft and the light was still on.
Also at this point the right front brake started dragging.

So I replaced the master cylinder the other day, which resulted in NO brakes
at all. I did forget to bench bleed the master cylinder however, so I
connected a pressure bleeder to the fluid reservoir and then disconnected
the line going into the ABS pump, from the forward-most line on the master
cylinder, and connected a vacuum bleeder to it, to pull some of the air out.
There was quite a bit of air, so I was hopeful, however it didn't change the
pedal feel at all.

So I went ahead and pulled the right rear wheel and hooked the vacuum
bleeder to that caliper and (with the pressure bleeder still connected to
the fluid reservoir) started pumping. After 15 minutes of getting only small
droplets of fluid I started suspecting that I was again doing something
wrong, which is when I came in to write this e-mail.

I'm especially frustrated, because I have a manual here, but every time I do
something it actually only makes things worse. At some point it has to get
better, right?

Seamus