It is a simple and straightforward process to bleed the brakes on the BushCat if all has been installed correctly. Use a syringe with a tube attached to bleed nipple on each calliper. 

"Use a syringe with a tube attached to bleed nipple "

If you reverse the process, Fill syringe with fluid, attach to wheel brake nipple,  push fluid Up the line to the reservoir, just make sure its not over full.

Saves fighting the law of, air bubbles raising to the surface, when pushing fluid down the brake-line.

spacesailor

You WILL want a park brake.

1 minute ago, Downunder said:

You WILL want a park brake.

You underestimate how lazy I am!

1 minute ago, danny_galaga said:

Nuts, this is the park brake. Definitely a one way valve:

 

http://www.matcomfg.com/PARKINGBRAKEVALVEDUAL-idv-3579-8.html

It is a one way valve but the lever can unseat the poppet to allow fluid to flow freely in both directions (park brake off). 

Yes, all I have is park brake off option as it stands. The other position essentially turns off the brakes !

First:

You fill them from the bottom by buying a cheap small garden pump spray and attaching a neoprene pipe (which you also buy) to the nipple on the brakes themselves. This gives you, hopefully, a clean fill with no air pockets. Easy. You then stash all that gear in a poly bag for use in future services.

Second, of course the park brake isolates the brakes (from the pedals):

To apply park brake, press on pedals (so applying brakes) while turning on the park brake. Now, when you take your feet off, the pressure remains in the brakes!

I bleed my matco by sucking through from top to bottom. (Vacuum on nipple and operate brake lever)

I bought a cheap brake suction kit on ebay.

Some caliper nipples are on the bottom of the calipers. I think these are better suited to a push through system. Forcing air through and out the top.

As my matco nipples are on the top of the caliper (and the oil line at the bottom), I prefer to suck through them to remove the air.

I tried to bleed them the 'airplane' way before I realised the park brake was faulty. Wasn't working of course So i ended up bleeding them the 'automotive' way. After all, if it's good enough for hundreds of millions of cars...

Millions of cars have their brakes filled by pushing the fluid up to the main reservoir.

spacesailor 

Usually parking a hydraulic brake is not considered reliable for any real length of time.. What you MUST have is no chance of it NOT releasing in normal use. (Brakes OFF check pre landing). Bubbles always run uphill. If you don't bleed fast enough  and continuous to carry them through  you will never get all the air out. and have spongy brakes. always. A bleed nipple at the highest point may make all the difference. Nev

On 23/09/2020 at 5:20 PM, spacesailor said:

"Use a syringe with a tube attached to bleed nipple "

If you reverse the process, Fill syringe with fluid, attach to wheel brake nipple,  push fluid Up the line to the reservoir, just make sure its not over full.

Saves fighting the law of, air bubbles raising to the surface, when pushing fluid down the brake-line.

spacesailor

That's what we do these days on mountain bikes. . (Syringe on nipple.) - 

Sometimes, if I don't have the syringe handy, (mountain bike)  there is another cleaner way.... I remove the reservoir  cover,  ensure it is topped up. I tap the brake lines over their length with a donger  while pumping the brake lever . You watch the air bubbles come out of the pipe to the surface in the reservoir as you pump and tap  .  Most of those brakes are mineral oil. A few (Avid) are Dot3). IE can get away with not opening the bleed nipple. have done this in a vehicle also... (bleeds air but of course doesnt change out the fluid) (and mountain bike calipers are small pots !) Orientation matters, also.  getting air out of the actual caliper may require re-orientation of the bike or caliper. harder to do on a vehicle or aircraft...

Just updating my blog sites. I think most readers missed the point here that the park brake assembly itself was assembled incorrectly so that it couldn't work as a park brake. All it was doing was turning the brakes on and off- that is, in position 1 had working brakes, and in position 2 they didn't work, but no park brake in either case!

Yep, I for one misunderstood: my park brake is just a pair of ganged ball valves (one for each line): press on the brakes and turn off the valve.

I guess there must be some good reason for the arrangement of poppet valves and lift cams in the unit you have, presumably that you can apply the brakes regardless of the valve position...

40 minutes ago, IBob said:

Yep, I for one misunderstood: my park brake is just a pair of ganged ball valves (one for each line): press on the brakes and turn off the valve.

I guess there must be some good reason for the arrangement of poppet valves and lift cams in the unit you have, presumably that you can apply the brakes regardless of the valve position...

All I know is it made me wish it still had the previous version of brakes with just cables, drums and a handbrake 🤣

Yes, but now you're our resident Matco parking brake expert......)

3 minutes ago, IBob said:

Yes, but now you're our resident Matco parking brake expert......)

Not really, it's been so long since I looked at them I can't remember anything about it 🤣