Doing a brake flush by myself?

If Miatas have a vacuum port somewhere, you can use engine vacuum.  Empty the master via the turkey baster method, and then refill and start the car and let it idle.  Starting with the brake farthest from the master, crack the bleeder and use a clear tube to suck fluid from the slave or caliper into the engine. You can stand at the engine end of the hose and monitor master reservoir level. 

So I used the one person method that Keith Tanner mentioned. I also watched the video by ChrisFix on how to do it. Worked like a charm! I was a little hesitant at first if it would work, but it all went well...albeit a bit messy. Now I wonder if this method will work next year on my 06 Accord.

In reply to Japspec :

How long did it take to gravity bleed all four brakes?  The Barchetta is due for brake fluid refreshing and I'm thinking I'll try this rather than the two-person method I've always used in the past.

I use a Motive bleeder.  Good results for me

bluebarchetta said:

In reply to Japspec :

How long did it take to gravity bleed all four brakes?  The Barchetta is due for brake fluid refreshing and I'm thinking I'll try this rather than the two-person method I've always used in the past.

minimum time is probably 5 minutes per bleeder, but the beauty of this method is it can be 100% background operation while the car is in the air for other work.

i don't have a turkey baster, so i use the pump from an old hand soap bottle (not the foaming kind) with a piece of tygon tubing on the inlet.  a few pumps (ok, maybe 30 or so) and most of the old fluid is out of the reservoir.  top off with new and wait for clean fluid to appear out each bleeder.  to keep the mess down, i put a piece of tygon over the bleeder screw and loop it up a foot or so.  this allows me to see when the new fluid gets there, and allows me to control where the old fluid goes.

I use an old version of one of these:

In reply to bearmtnmartin :

I use the same method. I add a catch bottle on the line between the bleeder and the vacuum port. I don't want to suck brake fluid into the engine. It probably won't  hurt anything but why take the chance.