Hi All

Does anybody have experience of bleeding Hayes HFX9 without the official bleed kit? Spent a good hour last night with little success, method used was

1. Bike positioned so caliper is higher than lever (idea being that the air bubbles flow upwards and exit via the bleed screw)
2. Master cylinder cap removed, resevoir kept topped up to prevent air being drawn in through the master cylinder.
3. Press down on lever, open bleed nipple 1/4 of a turn, wait for 1-2secs, close bleed nipple, let go of lever.
4. Fill up resevoir, keep repeating point 3-4.

We got some success as we could feel the lever firming up, which suggests that air was evacuating the system, but having got a 'better' lever feel on a couple of occasions, successive pulling on the lever seemed to make it worse. I suspect that there isn't a good seal where the hose was reattached to the caliper and air is entering the system at this point.

Any comments/experiences welcome

Cheers

i've done them before with the old kit i used on the car, old coke bottle with a clear rubber tube through the lid,

now, from what i do youve got a little mixed up in that you should undo the nipple and then pull the lever down, close nipple, release leaver,
keep the resevior topped up though as two pulls and its nigh on empty!

do the same method on my hopes and have no issues,

fwiw, i dont bother altering the level of the bike from its normal position (think about the position of the car resevoir and the nipples, works fine on that so no reason why it wouldnt on the bike!)

You are doing it backwards

Position the lever higher than caliper and push fluid from caliper through to lever

Detailed instructions on their website

Cheers Timmo

Ok – I'll try opening the bleed screw before pulling the lever, but the logic (in my head at least!) was that if the fluid was pressurised it would flow out of the bleed nipple as soon as it was opened, thus preventing air flowing back into the system when the nipple was opened.

It seems though like my method doesn't differ all that much from yours and my theory about air getting in via a poorly sealed hose could be the cause.

Hi llama – my understanding is that that is the way to do it with the hayes bleed kit which I don't have (doing it for a mate)

Unless there is a funny with the master cylinder design that I'm not aware of, the car method should surely work? I used the car method with my Shimano brakes and it worked fine.

Its the only way I've done it, never tried it 'wrong way'.

The official kit is nothing special just a squeezy bottle, hose, and connector for draining fluid from the lever. I'm not sure its stricly necessary.

the only thing you really need to be careful of if doing it the 'right' way, but without the kit, is fitting a bit of hose into the bleed hole in the bladder at the reservoir, as it's easily damaged i believe. i think you can buy just that bit from crc as a spare for a couple of quid.
team that with some bits of pipe and a big syringe for the caliper ( pharmacy, vet's, chandler's etc. ) and you're good to go, 'reverse' bleeding, the way hayes do it.

As Del says but if you don't want to buy the hose from CRC the tube from a WD40 can is a good fit.

So; WD40 tube in bladder of lever (bend it round and tape in 'J' shape) then use cheap syringe and rubber hose to pump in the fluid at the caliper end. Job's a good'n.

You need to be careful about the leaver alignment, it has to be completely upside down if it's not exactly right this procedure leaves an air bubble in that enters the master cylinder as soon as you rotate the leaver. (this took me a couple of rather annoying bleeds to diagnose)

Good luck

yeah just buy a syringe and a bit of tubing – attach to caliper & undo the bolt on the caliper a bit. Harry Tuttle's WD40 tube is a good idea but i dont understand the lever being upside down. I rotate my levers so they are pointing upwards.

A good tip is it fill your syringe with lots of fluid and force it all through the system. this should eliminate and bubbles you might have floating around in the hose.

easy brake to bleed after the first couple of gos.