mostly it's people getting oil on their discs/pads. then attempting to 'fix' them by bleeding them. usually badly.

no offence taken i hope sadex? – i wish you well, but the chances of being able to talk you through the process of bleeding your brakes over an internet forum are very slim.

TAKE THE PADS OUT AND PUT THEM IN A DIFFERENT ROOM

1) calliper below lever – as far as possible – calliper unbolted and dangling works for me

2) attach 100mm of tubing to a 50ml syringe – fill with fluid.

3) attach the syringe to the bleed nipple

4) set your brake lever so the reservoir is horizontal

5) take off the top cap and rubber diaphragm – undo bleed nipple about 1 half turn from tight.

6) execute a well practised and considered combination of syringe pumping, lever pumping, piston resetting, calliper / hose jiggling. some air will escape towards the lever, some air will escape towards the syringe, some air will be stuck behind the pistons – letting them pump out a bit and then pushing them back in can help.

7) drain excess fluid from the reservoir as necessary.

8 ) put everything back on, and tighten.

9) clean everything, put the pads back in.

stupid double post.

my issue with shimano brakes is that the caliper seals are non replacable – this issue alone means ill not be buying another set of shimano brakes

i have 3 sets of XT (from old 4pots – non freestroke and freestroke ones) and a single saint – the non freestroke and saint brakes have all blown the piston seals and are not scrap save finding a cheap caliper in CRCs sales they have !

Hope id be looking at 10 quid tops for some seals and then some fluid and id be rolling again !

But to the op – your brakes sound wrong my free stroke adjustable ones are solid and feel great – but its just a matter of time till they blow also !

no offence taken mate. thats not the case with me tho. these are new brakes, not been used yet. and feel spongy straight from the shop. so im trying to get my head around a new bleeding system, after being used to oro's.

What do you find goes wrong with Shimano brakes then?

Beats me, I don't use them, there is the odd thread on here every so often where people have problems though.

which is more than I can say for various mates' squealing Hope set-ups

The squealing is a feature, encourages you to brake less!

update: been p*ssing about with them and ive made them better. but…..i dont think itll last :-/

why? well, i bled them as per the instructions, in fact i thought id messed it all up, because i was pulling on the syringe at the caliper, thinking i was pulling out any bubbles from that end, when i realised id taken all the fluid from the reservoir! so air had got in now!! grrrr…..

so i pushed it back hoping for the best, but resigning myself to the possibility id f*cked em up. obviously loads of little bubbles in the fluid, but once theyd calmed down i tried again. and as per instructions, the last thing i did was tube into waste bag, and opened bleed nipple and let it start draining into it, keeping reservoir topped up. ( i dont really understand that bit and why you should do it)

was expecting it to be real crap as id probably made it worse with the empty reservoir bit, but it was about the same, if not a bit better.

i did something that made more of a difference, but like i say, i dont think itll last. when id been putting that yellow spacer in between the pistons, it was loose, so kept dropping oout. which suggested to me that there was too much space between pads and rotor. and therefore too much lever travel before 'bite'.

so i took spacer out, and pumped the lever a few times to get the pistons out a bit further, so i had to force the spacer in. set it all up again, and obviously more of an instant bite. which is what i like.

am i right in thinking tho, that as the pads wear, the gap will just get bigger again tho, without compensating? and where does that free stroke screw come into this? i sort of thought that was what altered the lever travel.

sadex – you've probably read the posts froma few weeks ago when I was having similar probs with the same brakes from Ribble. Mine are now perfect 😛 I spent a good while bleeding them carefully – forcing fluid up from caliper with syringe, while reservoir horizontal, cap and rubber off and a makeshift dish tied to the bars to catch the fluid (It's new so reuseable as long as the dish is clean)I put through a load of fluid this way. I then did it reservoir down as per the Shimano instructions, which is the same as Hope (have a look on the Hope website which is very good). This sorted the spongy feeling. I then wound out the freestroke screw 2 full turns (as advised by bigyinn et al)and tweaked the nurled reach nut to get the initial bar/lever distance right. I am also running them inside my shifters, with the distances set up for 1 or 2 finger braking which also avoid lever/finger contact.

definately more of a footer than the older xt's I replaced, but much more powerful and better in just about every way. the only downside is that it is taking me a wee while to get used to not having indicator windows on rear shifter.

yellow spacer – was loose, so kept dropping oout. which suggested to me that there was too much space between pads and rotor. and therefore too much lever travel before 'bite'.

sorry, wrong (sorry).

the pistons pump out you know…?

if you pull the lever a little bit, the pistons move out a little bit, and then return to where they were when you let go.

if you pull the lever a LONG way, the pistons move out a lot more, but don't go back quite as far when you release the lever.

they automatically adjust for pad wear.

when i realised id taken all the fluid from the reservoir! so air had got in now!! grrrr…..

🙄

ahwiles – you are correct, however if you bleed the system with the pistons a little further out (e.g a slightly thinner spacer) and then top up the reservoir, surely there is more fluid in the system and a quicker bite ?

no. it doesn't work like that.

(yes, you'll have a little bit more fluid in the system, but this will be represented by a higher level in the reservoir – which won't affect braking performance)

ok, I wasn't too sure about my theory anyway 😛

so theres practically nothing i can do to position the pads closer to the rotor and get a more immediate bite?

but i just DID do. it worked. or like i thought, will it just get worse as the pads wear, then back to original gap?

i wish i understood these open systems a bit more :-/

sadex – if you unscrew the freestroke screws 2 full turns this makes bite more 'instant'. It will also bring your levers in a bit, so wind them back to where you want as a starting point with the nurled nuts. Mine are now quite 'bitey' and feels better than my Hope mono mini's on the other bike, which in turn felt better than my older xt's. Shifting the whole unit in a few inches towards the stem made a big difference in the overall feel too, despite my initial scepticism !

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/who-rides-with-their-brakes-inboard-of-shifters-shimano-xt-content

iain, i use them on my singlespeed, so no shifters to consider 🙂

as far as the free stroke screw goes, i read in one of the many threads ive seen, that you had to have it screwed out to bleed them. is this right? whether it is or not, thats where they are now, so ive got no more to play with.

ta

as far as the free stroke screw goes, i read in one of the many threads ive seen, that you had to have it screwed out to bleed them. is this right?

I undid them about halfway as i wasn't sure if it would make a difference to the bleeding process. seemed to work !