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Evening everyone.
I have just replaced the hose on my M8000 XT brakes and now need to bleed the brake. I have followed videos online step by step but having no luck, here is my method:
- Remove wheel and put plastic spacer in the caliper
- Screw in Shimano cup on the level
- Fill syringe half full with Shimano fluid
- Clear syringe so there is no air bubble in it then push through the hose and in to the cup
I dis this 2-3 times until the fluid was going back and forth without any bubble.
- Capped off the caliper and removed the syrine.
- Removed cup from lever and screwed the cap back in
My levers are just the same, they pull right back to the grip with hardly any braking force. When I quickly pump them 5-10 times there is some resistance on the lever but then when left its dead again.
Any ideas on what to try, I guess there is still air in it but no idea how to remove it!
This guy seems to know a thing or two:
Worked for me.
Which brake is it? Both the same issue? Make sure you have the lever above the caliper directly which can be hard to do without a stand for the rear.
Work your way up the brake line tapping it with a spanner or similar to help move the air along.
Thanks guys, bloody hoses are internal so cant really tap them much other than a bit near the caliper and the excess hose at the lever.
Front brake is OK, just the rear I am having problems with since changing the hose.
I did have it on a bike stand but the rear wheel probably was higher so I will try raising the front end and see if that helps.
Also I tried letting some fluid out the caliper with the lever pressed in (quick turn of the allen key) and unlike on videos where there seems to be pressure forcing the fluid out it just got about 1/4 of the way down the tube and that was it!
Bleed top down and then bottom up.
At the end, make sure you angle rotate the levers +/- 30 deg as in pages 23/24
Wind out the reach and the servo freestroke screw then try again. I have a filed down bleed block that I use as I jate a lever that close to the bar.
Qwerty +1. This is how i nleed my brakes now and it always works for me, and as mention above wind out tne freestroke too.
Syringe on the lever end. Squeeze syringe as hard as you can and whilst doing so squeeze the brake lever as hard as you can several times.
Top secret Cytech level 4 stuff.
Just tried the above method like on the video and worked a treat! Thanks for the heads up it will save me a lot of hassle in the future.
Still makes me chuckle...genius from MrNutt...
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/bleeding-brakes-how-to-an-idiots-guide/
Whichever method you use, having the open to atmosphere bit higher than all other parts is key. As is squeezing/flicking/pumping the lever, otherwise the air jus sits in the master cylinder
The guy in the video, basically does the second part of the Shimano method, except they use a hose with a bag on the end, which seems way less messy than the rag method.
If you were pumping the lever and not getting fluid back into the syringe at the other end, that is a good sign you had air in there somewhere, since air is almost infinitely compress able, it won't move the fluid.
The drawback to the video method and what I like about the Sram method is that by pumping the fluid from syringe to syringe you get a really good indicator of if there is air in there somewhere.