Morning. I have fitted some M785s to my bike and shortened the hoses following Shimano’s instructions. I lost no fluid during this process. Getting the pistons to return enough to fit the pads was hard, but over and above that, I have found the brake levers are very firm and the pads are dragging, almost like there’s no longer any give in the system.

Has anyone else experienced this and/or can offer a solution.

Many thanks and Happy Christmas,

Dom

Sounds like too much fluid.

Push the pistons back with the yellow funnel fitted,

Or just crack the bleed nipple open and drain a bit out that way?

yep sounds like over fill. Easy to fix:

Remove break pads, open bleed nipple, push pistons back in, tighten bleed nipple, clean up any spillage, put pads back in. Go ride!

As others have said, push the pistons back with the funnel attached, or the bleed port open. I find also that the lever feel becomes progressively softer as the pads wear, sometimes resulting in having to add fluid if I wanted to keep the firmer feel at the lever…then having to remove fluid when replacing the old pads with new.

Also, that tiny little hole on the seam of the reservoir, do you reckon that’s a sort of emergency fluid outlet to avoid damage from too much pressure when pushing back pistons in an overfilled system?

Great suggestions. Thank you very much for your help. I’ll give it a go!

The tiny hole allows air in behind the bellows as the pads wear and the fluid level drops.

Slight hijack but it might help someone.

When cutting hoses I pump the pistons out a bit to start with, then cut the hose up at the lever end, finish up by pushing the pads back with the lever cap off and any bubbles get blown into the reservoir.

Adds a minute to the job but never fails 🙂

Standard procedure surely? 🙂