Afternoon everyone - I am replacing the brake lines on my old Golf as one of them had rotted/split. The others were of the same age so I've decided to do all four. I've also taken this opportunity to change the MC too so a slightly larger bore found on the later 16v (Mine is 1989 LHD GTI)

So....I've bought an easi-bleed valve and was going to fit the lines and then bleed the system. However I've seen on a few forums/FB/etc that it's best to bench bleed the MC before fitting it. Most videos seem to show a 2 port system, but the MC I have is 4 port and did not come with a bleed kit. Do all ports have to be done at the same time?

Is it worth doing this - and if I do what's the best way to do it without the kit? I did consider buying some bleed nipples to fit to the MC and then attempt to do prime each one in turn - but this will add extra cost and I'm not sure it'll work effectively either?

So - Bench bleed or not? If yes - any top tips? I also have a rear compensator - Do I continue and just ignore this, or will this prove to be challenging?

Thanks everyone!

I was taught the bench bleed before fitting a master cylinder but I have found in practice it makes very little difference when using a pressure bleeder. Make sure you don’t have too much pressure when using an easy bleed ,probably around 15 psi or 1 bar otherwise you will have a leak from the cap to m/c connection. You can crack off each connection in turn on the master cylinder when the easibleed is connected to release any air

Ah, sorry that’s probably my mistake. I’ve got the manual tubing with a valve on, sadly not an automated machine.

Does your advice still stand?

Many thanks for replying

Easibleed is around £20 , makes bleeding brakes and clutches a one man job , bleeds in a fraction of the time and more importantly it will bleed where pumping the pedal doesn’t always work . Spent ages and loads of fluid trying to bleed the clutch on my old Midget, Easibleed did the job literally in 5 seconds .