Soft lever after fitting braided lines.
 

I replaced my standard brake lines with a braided set of hels the other day. My reason for doing this was due to having a soft lever. I could almost pull the lever back to the bar under full braking and no braking at all at half lever. I have fully bled the front brake and I am still getting this type of brake feeling, from friends bikes I'm pretty sure my lever shouldn't feel like this. Anyone any ideas what's going on?

Re: Soft lever after fitting braided lines
 

Not bled properly, or caliper dust seals dragging pistons back in.

Re: Soft lever after fitting braided lines
 

Has to be no2 because there sure as ain't any air in there, I've bled half a bottle of brake fluid through the front! How do I fix the seals?

Re: Soft lever after fitting braided lines
 

I see it a couple of times with people "I've bled 450 litres of fluid through and it's still spongy! I'm sweating the stuff through my pores and a load of hippies keep coming round and washing it out of my dog!"

It is completely possible to bleed loads of fluid through and miss the odd bubble. Make sure you bleed it out of all the banjos especially with the stock splitter thing. And make sure you angle the master cylinder to get any bubbles out of that (worse on S model).


Search on here for caliper rebuild. Basically... take pistons and seals out... clean sh*t out... lubricate, reassemble, rebuild.

Re: Soft lever after fitting braided lines
 

The stock splitter thing you refer to, I can still only bleed out of the left and right caliber bleed nipples yea? How much more can you bleed for until you realise you are getting nowhere? That's what it seems like to me at the mo and its more the seals thing you mentioned.

Re: Soft lever after fitting braided lines
 

No, bleed it out of the banjo fittings.


You know it's not working when you aren't getting bubbles out and bleeding more out (from that point) isn't making matters any better.

Re: Soft lever after fitting braided lines
 

Ok so crack open the banjo bolts a little and bleed from them instead of the bleed nipples? So there will probably be fluid dripping out of them when I open each time.

Re: Soft lever after fitting braided lines.
 

Yes

Re: Soft lever after fitting braided lines.
 

Ok thanks will give it a go.

Re: Soft lever after fitting braided lines.
 

Another thing to try is once you have completed the bleed, zip tie your brake lever to the handlebar for the night. This will ensure that it stiffens up. I didn't need to do this on mine but did anyways. Was great stiffness once I released the zip ties.

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