Bought me some new brakes lately, SLXs from All Terrain and XTs from ze germans at Rose. Both come wrong-handed (I knew this), so last night I attempted to swap the levers over. Seems to have worked fine for the SLXs but not so fine for the XTs, on which I can’t seem to force the pistons back far enough into the caliper.

With the SLXs I’d already fitted them, so removed wheels, pumped levers a bit, undid the hoses and swapped them over, prised the pads apart with the big screwdriver. Sorted.

With the XTs I’ve not fitted them yet, so removed the pads, pumpy pumpy, swapped hoses but can’t seem to push the pistons back enough. I just about managed to get them in enough to get the pads back in, but only just and I’m very worried about fubaring the pistons as they’re ceramic on the XTs. What have I done (or what aren’t I doing)?

Hmm tricky, sounds like you have stuck to the shimano advised process and like you say, it worked for the SLX’s, so its hard to see what you could be up against.

The difference seems to be that the SLX were fitted, the XT’s werent. The only thing that came into my mind was the height of the reservoir. As far as i can remember, the idea of extending then pushing the pistons back in was to ensure that any air was forced to the top of the reservoir; this would be a lot easier if the lever & reservoir was above (higher than) the calliper, as it would be on a bike.

If it was me, i would try securing the lever higher up on a table or something, whilst trying to gently push the pistons back in, to get any air back to the top of the reservoir (just like the end of the bleeding process)

Just a thought though. Hope it works out.

Got any links to any Shimano/Youtube documentation showing you how to do this without going to the trouble of a bleed? Have got some XTs from Rose and have been googling around this concept trying to find out how to do it, without success.

Hmm, maybe… I need to shorten the hoses anyway so will probably invest in a bleed kit and have a proper go at them when that arrives.

Shimano really ought to make their levers interchangeable (like Avid)!

Shimano really ought to make their levers interchangeable

no the rest of the world need to learn right for front brake left for rear, bloody stupid foreigners.

StefMcDef, Shimano tech doc for messing with hoses (M785 XT but pretty much all new shimano i think)….
http://techdocs.shimano.com/media/techdocs/content/cycle/SI/DiskBrakeSystem/SI_8JA0A/SI-8JA0A-003-00-ENG_v1_m56577569830750008.PDF

There is a general shimano tech doc somewhere that recommends the OP’s approach, but i cant remember where. Take out the pads first, pump the lever a few times to expose the pistons, then do the hose shorten. When you are done, push the pistons back in. This forces any air to the reservoir, which should be okay in small amounts, and means you don’t have to bleed. You will need a new insert and olive though, but these spares should come with new brakes in the box.

We fit these brakes on a weekly basis.

Set the brakes up as normal (centre caliper over rotor etc), set lever horizontal, undo the hose retaining nut, pull out hoses and swap over.

If done carefully then there’ll be no need to bleed. If you have the special funnel to hand then any air can be tapped out the lever using that method.

I had to do this on a Orbea 29er that came with a ‘euro’ set-up.

I’ve ordered a set of xt’s from rose – can anyone confirm if they come with spare olives??

^ Yes, to the olives.

I got one olive with my pair, no inserts though so you’ll have to re-use those already fitted