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  • Bledin' Frankenbrakes.
  • Ambrose
    Full Member

    Long story cut short. I’m a big bloke who likes riding down hills. I used to boil my brakes regularly in the Alps so I ‘upgraded’ my Avid Juicy Carbons by making a pair of Frankenstoppers. Carbon levers, aftermarket braided hose from SSC and Code 4 Pot calipers from the classifieds. All is now good although I suspect that the Carbon lever doesn’t shift as much fluid from its master cylinder as it should do because I get a lot of movement in the lever. But hey ho, pushing fluid into the system during set up seems to have sorted it until the pads are about half worn.

    Anyway, that was two years ago and apart from replacing pads and adjusting the lever reach nothing has been touched at all. Yesterday I went to ride- no back brake at all, the lever moved all the way to the bar, the pads could be seen to move but were wholly ineffective. Replaced the pads, still no worthwhile braking. Looked at the disk, it was very worn, so I replaced it with an unworn spare. Slight improvement but lever now crushes my knuckles. Next step was to see if adjusting the lever out would help but it was at its limit.

    Hmm- time for a bleed? So I did, following the two manuals, plus youtube vids etc. A slog up followed by a blast down the local hill confirms all is now OK…. But when I bled the brakes it looked like I really did bleed them; the fluid was crimson, like blood. When I set the system up I put Halfords DOT4 Race fluid in, it has a higher boiling point than ‘normal’ DOT4. Perhaps it’s characteristic of the fluid. Anyway, all very peculiar indeed. Is my bike going to die of internal bleeding?

    FWIW The hoses are red- can the colour ‘bleed’ through?

    danielgroves
    Free Member

    I’ll offer nothing of use, but I will say that I thought that was your blood in the picture before reading the post 😯

    Ambrose
    Full Member

    I know- it looks properly gory. I should have done it on Halloween.

    LsD
    Free Member

    Are you sure all that red crap isn’t just a sticker???

    Houns
    Full Member

    SSC there’s your problem*, they’ve turned your fluid in to aborted octopi

    *dunno really

    Ambrose
    Full Member

    🙂

    epicbleedsolutions
    Free Member

    Sounds like the DOT fluid has reacted with the hose to me.

    Were the hoses meant to be used with DOT or mineral oil fluids? Or did it not specify?

    Shouldn’t be anything to worry about.

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