[Vwdiesel] Not diesel, just brake bleeding hell on a VW Bug question

[William J Toensing]

I am just a shade tree amateur mechanic but a few things come to mind. Have you checked the front wheel cylinders? Could they be frozen? Next, are the front wheel brake hoses OK? I vaguely recall hearing of some rubber breaking off the inside acting as a one way valve. With the master & all wheel cylinders removed can you blow air thru the brake lines each way? Is the master cylinder rebuilt or new? You might have a defective master cylinder, especially if you bought it from one of the chains like Chief, Pep Boys, Advanced, etc. Napa auto parts seem to have higher quality parts.
In 1988 I bought a 1941 Ford (which I still have) that was a "little old lady" barn find which had only 20,000 miles on it but the rubber components were all bad due to age. I replaced both the master cylinder, all wheel cylinder cylinders & all hoses. But before doing so, I drained out all the brake fluid, then filled it with alcohol & let it set a couple days. The I removed the old master & wheel cylinders & blew out the lines with air from my air compressor, then installed Dot 5 silicon fluid. I did that because I heard that this was the only successful way to use Dot 5 brake fluid since any remaining Dot 3 (or Dot 4) being hydroscopic, would attract water over time & thus rust. I still have the original 1941 brake shoes on the front which are likely asbestos & new shoes on the rear. Why you might ask? In the '41 Ford brake shoes, all 8 brake shoes are interchangeable. The rear shoes on all 4 wheels showed practically no wear so I put the olds ones on the front since I thought they would work better. I did brake shoe replacement  around 8 years ago as I recall. No problem with any leaking or brake operation some 22 years after 22 years. 
Bill Toensing, Nevada City, CA