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I'm finally giving up on the Avids and have seen some Shimano on Merlin at a good price.
The hoses are longer than my original ones, front by 200 mm, rear by 100 mm.
I'm useless at anything involving Brake Fluid so am I going to end up with a disaster if I attempt to shorten them myself ?
If you don't:
1 Follow the instructions
2 Use the correct tools
Yes, you probably will knob it up. 🙂
I recently did this for the first time.
Really easy.
See the YouTube vid
Regards
Denis
I did mine with no drama and no need to bleed.
The key tool needed is decent cable cutters in my view.
The plastic bottle thing that screws into the brake reservoir makes the job very easy.
Regards
Denis
On the otherhand, if you take it slowly, it really is quite straightforward, usually you don't even need to bleed them afterward if you follow the guides. Epic bleed solutions have a good one
Rats, 37 secs behind the times!
I had to swap one of my hoses once when the dog ate one. Was surprised how easy it was to be honest. Was expecting brake fluid every where, but it just wasn't the case. Removed the hose from the lever and absolutely nothing came out.
Shimano are by far the easiest brakes to work on. Really easy to shorten the hose and even if you cock it up and have to bleed it it's easy.
Get the bleed kit from Epic. Don't worry about the little cup for the lever just pull the plunger out of one of the syringes and use that. Get a bottle of mineral brake fluid from a motor discount shop for a fraction of the price of Shimano's pink stuff.
Get a bottle of mineral brake fluid from a motor discount shop for a fraction of the price of Shimano's pink stuff.
This is one place i prefer to spend extra and buy the Shimano stuff. Lots of people stating Halfords car mineral oil is just as good. But I found it made the brake lever feel sluggish and didn't have the same feel. The brakes still stopped me fine just never felt the same.
The little bottle of Shimano stuff costs about a £10 and is good for about 3 or 4 bleeds. Its not something I do very often so don't mind spending the extra. If I had to bleed brakes on a monthly basis maybe I'd look at alternatives.
Did mine on Sunday. Found a nice sharp stanley knife blade did a fine job of cutting them. Bleeding seemed to go ok. Worse case, Halfords bleed brakes for £6 an end. That's where my Kona/Tektro brakes will be going!
I did mine a couple of weeks ago using the Epic Bleed solutions guide.
This was on some new SLX bought from Merlin.
I bought the bleed kit from Epic Bleed Solutions as a precaution and initially thought that I wouldn't need it.
But, there has been enough fluid loss from both brakes to require a bleed. Inverting the bike for even a short time (or even just laying it on it's side results in very spongy brakes and lots of lever travel.
But, the bleed process looks easy enough (again, there's a good guide that you can download from the EBS website). I am yet to do this - struggling to find the time, but it seems to be straight forward and the bleed kit looks like it's decent quality.
Before you do it, just make sure you have read the guide few a few times so you know broadly what the task is. Then, make sure you have everything to hand and a clear workspace. Put the new olives/barbs in a dish or pot as they are small and can be easily lost if the roll off a surface.
I followed the Epic guide a few weeks back when shortening but the first one I did I didn't tighten up the nut that goes into the lever (with the olive inside) enough and lost a few drips of oil through that. The second one I didn't loose any oil anywhere but seems pretty spongy to me so think will do a top-up soon.
Another thing to note with Shimano brakes. If the brakes do feel spongy after shortening the hoses a full bleed is not always needed.
Usually you can just top up the fluid levels from the lever. Give the hose and lever a few taps to displace the air out of the port on the lever and the lever becomes nice and firm again.
Thanks for the great feedback chaps.
jairaj, we've made a guide out of that technique also:
5 Minute Shimano Mini Bleed
http://www.epicbleedsolutions.com/blog/5-minute-shimano-mini-bleed/
Re-bled the front brake last night (SLX) and found it very easy.
The brake is now nice & crisp & the caliper was very easy to set-up in the centre of the pads - absolutely no contact between pads & rotor.
I'll probably do the rear tonight.
Early days, but in stark contrast to my previous 'Avid only' experience.
edit - epicbleedsolutions. Coincidental timing that I was just writing a follow-up. Found the bleed kit from yourselves easy to use.
Your instructions (the pdf that I downloaded) mention a 60ml syringe but the supplied one is only 35ml, I think. That is plenty big enough, but it might be worth checking the file & updating if that is a typo (or the spec has changed). It might confuse people who aren't used to fiddling with brakes.
Thanks Stumpy, it'll be the older file which needs updating. I'll get that sorted tonight/tomorrow.
The 30ml syringe is much better for bleeding. Easier to handle than the 60ml. Plus you only need roughly 20ml per brake anyhow. We started including a 60ml syringe in our kits purely on the basis that Shimano did, but they now use 30ml too.
Thumbs up from me for Epic (both for the guides that are clear enough even I can follow and for the quality of the kits/tools and customer service).