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My Brother-in-law has rather neglected Tange Charge 29er that he's asked for my help resurrecting.
He's ordered new Shimano brakes because the Avid Elixirs were shot, but they've come 'Euro' style.
I've bled my own brakes before but never bought brakes set up this way, so I assume the steps to get them setup the RIGHT way are as follows
- Remove hose from caliper
- Drain fluid
- Remove hose from lever
- Cut hose to length
- Install new barbs and olives
- Refit hose to correct lever
- Re-fill fluid
- Bleed
Anything above look off at all?
Any other advice welcome!
If your not shortening the hoses, simply swapping left to right, then no new barbs and olives are needed. Just unscrew from each lever and swap over. Do this very carefully and gently and you will barely lose any fluid. You don't need to 'drain' at all, that's only making the subsequent bleeding more lengthy and wasteful.
I've swapped hundreds of new Shimano brakes while working at a couple of bike shops. With the brakes upright (lever over caliper), undo the hoses from the lever end (carefully, without squeezing the lever). Quickly swap them over. In all the brakes I've done I've only twice need to do a partial (bottom up) bleed.
Both hoses appear to need shortening, especially the rear which is comically long!
Just swap the hoses over between the levers without losing fluid. Works fine. Done it to move brakes from UK to Euro style a few times with no problems.
unscrew from the levers, swap, screw in.
As above, if you're careful, you can usually get away without needing to bleed them.
But as you said the hoses need shortening... in which case IME you're even less likely to need to bleed. As long as you keep caliper low and lever angled when you remove the hose you can trim and fit the new barb which will take up the space of the minute amount of air you may have introduced.
Another trick is to remove the wheels and CAREFULLY squeeze the lever to extend the pistons (i.e. so the calipers are overfilled.). Then swap the hoses and push the pads apart with a flat screwdriver to push the pistons back in. This will force the extra fluid back into the reservoir and take any air bubbles with it.
If hoses need shortening then even better... carefully remove hose from lever, cut excess with a hose cutter and you should have full hoses that reattach to levers.
Don't forget new olive and barb
As above, just swap the m/cyls over but I would add a little step that works for me... before detaching the hose, just squeeze the lever a little to extend the caliper pistons a bit. Now swap them over. Then push the caliper pistons back so they are flush and any naughty air that got into the master cyl will be pushed harmlessly into the reservoir...
