Bleedin' Brakes!

Originally Posted by tomjones2

Someone told me to reverse bleed them which is what I am going to after I strip them just to check nothing has gone funny. Basically take a big syringe (not sure where to get these) and inject the fluid from the bleeding nipple until it come out of the brake fluid reservoir. Obviously make sure that you are not injecting air bubbles into the air line.

Prepare to make a real big mess. I did!

+1 for back bleeding them. Just changed my hoses and bled the system using a syringe. Only took about a minute for each caliper.

Originally Posted by zunkus

Prepare to make a real big mess. I did!

Where did you get a syringe, I'm probably going to take the system off the bike

Originally Posted by tomjones2

Where did you get a syringe

Vets, medical supplies company, ebay, online.... can cost pennies!

[northwind]

Yeah, I got mine off ebay for about ?3, which I reckon is about 10 times the cost of the parts but it makes things easy, I value my time high enough that I didn't go looking for a suitable syring and hose in order to save ?3.50

Doesn't have to be messy, that's one of the big advantages in fact. It does help to add a hose clip to the hose at each end (ie one to grip the syringe and one to grip the nipple) as it increases the pressure you can use without risking the hose blowing off (which is very annoying, and very messy!)

I keep meaning to do a video of this, it's so much easier to do than to explain. But it's just "push fluid through with syringe, draining off old fluid from reservoir (I use another syringe for simplicity, my pack came with a small useless one), push fluid back if you want with the lever (it just fills the syringe again) then push it back up. Repeat if needed. Lovely. Miles better than a mityvac- faster, easier, more effective and about 1/12th the cost

[Viney]

Originally Posted by Grinch

Oh how I hate these most hated of things that I now hate so much, I just can't express enough hate towards them. I hate them now even more then my hate of mushy peas, broccoli, cauliflower, and swede.

They are evil and must be burned.

Why all this hate, cus I have stripped down, cleaned, renewed the seals and then rebuild the brakes on my 'build' SV. Yet every time I try to bleed them it just fails... the only thing left is to strip out the master cylinder seals, but they where working before I did this, just the dust seals where toast.

*Sniggers*

Today I will be trying again... if it fails this time it will have to wait till the syringe arrives.

[Viney]

Syringe *Sniggers again*

I showed you how to do it you fool, with less that 1/4 litre of fluid.

Originally Posted by Viney

Syringe *Sniggers again*

I showed you how to do it you fool, with less that 1/4 litre of fluid.

I know... that's what's stressing me out, I managed it fine with the last back one I did. But these front.... argh!

[Viney]

Right

Pull lever in, Open the front bleed nipple, slow count to 6, then close. Repeat 5 times. Then other caliper. Then back to the other side. After about 6 times each side, then short it to a slow count of 3. and repeat until you get fluid out.

Failing that, a long piece of windscreen washer tubing and suck the fluid through.