I work alone and often have to wait for a pedal pusher to drop by. The system I use till they show up is simple. I run down to Lowes and buy 10 feet rolls of PVC clear tube that are a tight fit on the bleed niples. I remove the bleed screws and grease the threads with brake grease. Replace the bleeds and force a length og tube onto the nipple. The other end goes into a jar. All four corners with nipple just off the seat 1/4 / 1/2 turn open. I fill the master and go to work on something else. Checking now and then the fluid will start flowing and when it does close that nipple and top off the master. Once all are gravity bled I start looking for that pedal pusher and finish in a normal manner. I don't know about others but I start with the wheel closest to the master and work my way out. All master instructions suggest bench bleeding the master. You can put a little fluid in the cyl and push the piston in and out a couple of times till fluid appears at the top of cyl. If already installed in car crack fitting at top of master and have some one pump the brake till fluid appears around the fitting. A rag wrapped around will help with spillage. Once you clear that air loc the rest will be easy.

Steve (CTR)

I'm just an incredibly stupid mechanic. But yea, everything I own gets converted to discs.

The Gunson Eezibleed is worth every penny for pressure bleeding brakes and clutch

//www.gunson.co.uk/item.aspx?item=1818

But for bleeding you SHOULD just need to back off all of the adjusters up front (and tighten them up in the rear) and then bleed in a normal manner (furthest to closest). The key is, as I said, slacking off the adjusters on the 4 front shoes to get the slave pistons all the way in so the bubbles don't get trapped in the forward cylinders. After you feel satisfied that you got the air out, you need to adjust up the brakes before you will get anything close to a solid pedal.

Spank, What an INCREDIBLY STUPID design if this is what one must do to do a simple job like bleeding brakes!!! WOW! Now I know why alot of owners have converted to the Cooper S disk brakes!!

I feel (felt) your pain.

The best / most extreme advice I can offer is this:

Fill the master cylinder to the brim. Crack the rear bleeders. Then, if you have a bean can single master cylinder,  you can shove/wedge a 1/2" heater hose down in the filler neck and either blow in there with all your might (be prepared to pass out) or, in small pulses, used compressed air to blow into master cylinder to push the fluid down and out the rear nipples. If you use compressed air, be prepared that you may accidentally pulse too hard and pop that 1/2" hose out of the master top and fling brake fluid all over the place. Have a spray bottle of water handy. Be sure to STOP and refill when the master is just 1/4 -1/3 of the way down. just a couple pulse's worth. Don't let the level drop more than this. Do this until your pretty confident at least 90% of the air is out of the rear lines. Then close up the rear bleeders. If you use compressed air, you really only need a couple of pounds of force. But if you use a ton, and you pulse, be careful you don't end up aerating the fluid (introducing lots of tiny air bubbles to it).

Now to the front. Crack the bleeder under the radiator side, MAKE SURE THE front SHOES ARE FULLY RETRACTED both sides (very important). then do the same filling of master and blowing into the hose to push the fluid through. Close that far bleeder and then open the clutch side and repeat until you are fairly confident there is no air in there. close up the bleeders)

(this next step is the SUPER extreme step --and really quite asinine, but I've done it-- and may not be at all necessary but I'll include it anyway: Remove the drum of one of the front wheels. After the drum is removed, have an assistant in the car. You crack open the bleeder (which is on the rear side's cylinder) and you hold the front cylinder piston in the bore with channel locks or your hand or whatever and you have the assistant very very very slowly push down on the brake pedal while you watch the rear cylinder start to move/want to pop out. Tell him/her to stop when it raises but before it pops out. It should retrack when he/she stops on your command and holds her/his pedal position. Then squeeze that rear cylinder down into it's bore, too, which should produce more fluid squishing out of the bleeder. Then close the bleeder and allow your assistant to release the pedal. Replace the drum and adjust up the adjusters for that side. -- go to the other side and repeat the hand squeezing of the slave cylinders).

Less extreme next step: Adjust up all of the shoes, front and rear, and check for pressure. If the shoes are not adjusted all the way, you will get no pedal. But you must do the initial bleeding with front wheel cylinders fully unadjusted/cylinders down into their bores otherwise any trapped air in each wheel cylinder will stay there and be seemingly nearly impossible to push out of the bleeder.

Maybe somebody out there has the secret to bleeding the twin leading drum brakes. I have replaced the master cylinder, ALL the wheel cylinders, shoes and lines....and when we attempt to bleed the system, there is NO pedal...or very llittle. Anyone out there have any secrets, ideas, insight? HELP!!