Joined May 2008
684 Posts | 0+
Falkirk, Scotland
Hi folks,
Right, my front brake is a wee bit spongy and the lever has more travel than it did before I put the bike off the road back in September. Comes quite far back to the bar and can sometimes trap my fingers.
So after doing a bit of searching both on here and AF1 I'm going to reverse bleed the brakes. I grabbed a pair of plastic syringes on eBay that come with the clear plastic tubing too.
Having read through the various threads here about this method including Posh Johhny's sticky thread I understand the priciple apart from one ( probably silly ) part. So am I right in thinking the procedure is :-
Now, the "silly" thing I mentioned right at the start that I wasn't sure about is this. Obviously during this process you don't go anywhere near the brake lever and squeeze it as per the "traditional" bleeding method. So at the end of the reverse bleed procedure once all the new fluid is in, bleed screws are retightened and reservoir cap is refitted, do you just pump the brake lever a few times and thats you sorted?.
Also, is there any way you are supposed to do this in order, i.e. left front caliper first then right then rear?.
Thanks in advance folks. Hoping to give this a go today and wanted to be double sure I knew exactly what is involved. :thumbup
Right, my front brake is a wee bit spongy and the lever has more travel than it did before I put the bike off the road back in September. Comes quite far back to the bar and can sometimes trap my fingers.
So after doing a bit of searching both on here and AF1 I'm going to reverse bleed the brakes. I grabbed a pair of plastic syringes on eBay that come with the clear plastic tubing too.
Having read through the various threads here about this method including Posh Johhny's sticky thread I understand the priciple apart from one ( probably silly ) part. So am I right in thinking the procedure is :-
- Clean around reservoir cap area
- Remove brake reservoir cap
- Using one of the syringes, suck out the old fluid in the reservoir and clean
- Fill resevoir with fresh fluid
- Fill other syringe with fresh fluid and fit using plastic tube to bleed nipple on caliper
- Crack bleed nipple open and slowly begin filling from syringe, watching the level in the reservoir
- As reservoir fills up, remove the excess ( When you stop pressing the syringe to remove the excess before continuing do you need to close the bleed nipple first and then crack it open again to continue filling or is that not required ) ?.
- Rinse and repeat until fresh, clean fluid starts to appear in the reservoir. When it does, stop, tighten bleed nipple and then refit reservoir cap. Or before refitting reservoir cap, transfer syringe over to bleed nipple on other caliper and repeat until old fluid in that side of the system is expelled and again, fresh fluid starts filling the reservoir up.
- Once you are confident that you have completely fresh fluid now in the system, stop, tighten bleed nipple and refit reservoir cap. Job done.
Now, the "silly" thing I mentioned right at the start that I wasn't sure about is this. Obviously during this process you don't go anywhere near the brake lever and squeeze it as per the "traditional" bleeding method. So at the end of the reverse bleed procedure once all the new fluid is in, bleed screws are retightened and reservoir cap is refitted, do you just pump the brake lever a few times and thats you sorted?.
Also, is there any way you are supposed to do this in order, i.e. left front caliper first then right then rear?.
Thanks in advance folks. Hoping to give this a go today and wanted to be double sure I knew exactly what is involved. :thumbup
Last edited:
irate
