Hello, Im new to this forum

I have been using some second hand juicy 5 march 07 on my bike for a while and they have seemed good. The second to last ride i did the back brake seemed abit soft. I bought a bleed kit from ebay and bleed both brakes as recomended by Sram on there u tube video. I did not have the red plastic dummy pad/disc so bleed the brakes with the disc and pads left in. They seemed much better and sharp.

During the ride today the front brake seemed to go very soft with alot of lever travel (almost to the bars). After the ride I took the pads out to check the thickness they are only 50% worn. I pushed the pistons back and put the pads back in. I have pumped the lever but the pistons to not seem to take up the gap and stay there. The retract back and give you a very long lever.

Any ideas or help as I cant ride the bike with brakes this bad. Not totally sure if its a pad setup problem or a bleeding problem.

Thank You

More likely to be a bleed problem, with air left in the reservoir. Did you pull the lever with the bike upside down, or wheeeling it through a gap on it’s rear wheel? If you’d left air in the reservoir then this’d allow it into the system.
Edit- it’s also worth keeping the pistons clean, and lubed with silicone oil/grease on a regular basis as it stops them sticking to the seals(can cause the pistons to self retract, rather than self adjust).

have tried bleeding them again and no real difference. maybe ill try some silicone spray and another bleed in the morning

Yes I had pulled the lever with the bike upside down.

thanks

They’re quite partial to hiding a pocket of air under the diaphragm when being bled, flipping the lever upside-down, or pressurising the master cylinder with the syringe before the final few sucks will help shift it.Bleeding properly will take a lot longer than they’d have you believe,when you think you’ve sucked all the bubbles out, carry on and it’s likely that you’ll soon suck out more.Probably don’t need to tell you this, but remove the pads before using the silicone spray, then work the pistons back and forth so the lube is worked into the seals.

Right have had another go.

Siliconed sprayed the pistons worked them in and out a bit and then re-bleed. The fronts have come up nice but the backs are still a bit spongy.

When you say flip the lever upside down I assume you mean so the lever is pointing to the ground.

With the design should any trapped air not work its way up to the master cylinder anyway during use? and therefore you only should need to bleed the master cylinders on a regular basis

I got rid of my Juicy 7s for precisely this reason.