can anyone point me to a web link that explains shimano brake bleeding in simple/ basic/ step by step terms.
think along the lines of ‘ladybird’ books, you remember, LARGE print and pictures 😀

slx and xt specifically.

cheers.

Here you go, have fun.

After I (slightly) messed up shortening an XT rear brake hose, resulting in brake sponginess, the mechanic in JD cycles, Ilkley, showed me how he does it. Just got the reservoir at the front horizontal, took the reservoir lid off, then tedious 10 minutes of depressing brake lever.The bubbles came out, top up with mineral fluid all the while, when bubbles stop coming fill to near-spilling point, then rescrew the reservoir lid.

3rock, i’m intrigued. so no syringe or hose or anything? …just open the res, pump the lever to remove the trapped air and top up?

depends where the air is surely, if its at the top playing with the lever can dislodge it, I had an absolute nightmare with some saints, tried every way going, it took lots of attempts and lots of tapping the caliper hoses etc

where’s me manners 🙄

thanks for the link duntstick, very helpful.

have you tried the search function on this very forum? Theres a thread most weeks about bleeding or adjusting shimano brakes (usually the XT M775) with quite a few responders giving blow by blow guides and sneaky tips (reverse bleeding frome the caliper up is often recommended).

£2 worth of syringes and hose, push fluid up from caliper (2nd syringe is to suck excess fluid from reservoir). Job done.

@mc – tried a search, but didn’t go back very far to be honest 😳

@northwind – were do you get your £2 syringes from?

Ebay… They’re probably about 10p worth of syringes tbh but it’s easier than trying to find some in a chemist.

i bought 10 small (30ml?) syringes for the princely some of 3 quid via ebay, think from medisave? Having recently bought XT775s I “favorited” several of the bleed threads in case i had problems with them as they seem to cause headaches than every other model combined.

right then, i’m off to the bay 8)

cheers all.

xt775 are a pain in the backside, i’ve never got a satifactory feel from themm, even with a shop bleed, front is great but rear which had a hose shortened when first built has been a nightmare.

Syringes, i got mine from the vets, gave me them for nothing, worth a try before spending any £’s

If you’ve a local Cartridge World, pop in there and ask… Mine had a few spare they were willing to sell me (50ml ones in my case), and didn’t look at me like I was some kind of weird junkie wanting to OD on Heroin (50ml syringes FFS, not 5ml!!!)…

Oh, and ignore that youtube video… Reverse bleed (with the syringe on a piece of hose attached to the bleed nipple) for definite. Guaranteed results in next to no time, rather than ages spent faffing trying to get trapped bubbles out.

after people went on about reverse bleed with syringes on here – i gave it go rather than the shimano method and i’m a convert

for syringes if you know any parents with young kids – baby age – then quite a few medicines come with syringes

edit and look inside kitchen/bathroom cleanser spray bottles for tube

vets, cartridge world… bugger! i’ve just spent a whopping £2.72 on two 50ml syringes from flea bay 🙄

soon as they arrive i’ll give it (bleeding) a go, and report back on the catastrophic failure outcome.

lots of older posts as mentioned above. with the new style servo wave ones I think caliper up, then reservoir down works best and sorts out any last bits of sponginess

ANotherstan – yep, reservoir flat horizontal with the floor, allowing air to come up naturally. A year later, brakes aok.