Who makes a decent bleed kit for Shimano brakes? There are a few on ebay ranging from £5-75, not sure which to go for! I have 2013 (I believe) SLX brakes if that makes a difference. Also a guide to bleeding would be handy if anyone has a good one!

I haven’t used a Shimano one but the Epic kits I’ve had before have been very good- equivalent to expensive OEM.

plenty guides online. Shimano brakes are a piece of p1ss to bleed. I do mine with a plastic bad, an elastic band and a bit of PVC sleeving from some telephone cable.

Remember..Google is your friend 😉

Shimano Tech Docs – Disc Brakes

This is the bit you want. Screws in the lever end. Then some pipe a spanner and a spacer.
Shimano Workshop SM-DISC BR-M575 Bike Disc Brake Bleeding Kit Tool

Is this a good guide for the newer brakes (think mine are M576 which should be 2013?) – http://www.pinkbike.com/news/technical-tuesday-shimano-brake-bleed-2010.html ?

If so what’s the need for the expensive kits/tools? Seems like the epic one on ebay should do the job?

Get the Epic one and then get the yellow oil funnel seperately, because you need it for 2012 and 13 Shimano brakes. That’s what I did when i needed to bleed my M785s.

Ok cheers. So what’s different in the bleed procedure for 2012/13 brakes? Can’t find much with google..

edit – it’s the BR-M675 I have, not what I said before!

We do a complete kit for Shimano 2012 onward brake sets now. We’re in the process of uploading the pages to our website, it should be launched this week sometime. We provide the lever adaptor too, so no need for the expensive Shimano funnel.

All will be revealed soon: http://www.facebook.com/epicbleedsolutions

Do you include instructions with your kits? I’ll probably just wait for your new complete kit then 🙂

Hi Tom, we do provide fully illustrated instructions with all our kits.

Nice, I’ll keep an eye out for them then 🙂

You need the Shimano funnel thingy, a 50-60ml syringe (ebay) and some 5mm clear tubing (B&Q) to attach the syringe to the caliper. IIRC it works out as about £6, or more if you buy a Shimano specific kit.

Oh and buy a litre of mineral oil, far cheaper long term than those piddly little bottles.

Here’s a bland but useful vid for funnel bleeding:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2c6ezHY0A4&feature=related[/video]

Wow, that music is amazing 😆

On my (very) old deores I used a bent coat hanger, some tubing and an old water bottle..
Worked a treat, although I accept things might have moved on a touch as that was at least 10 years ago!

[video]http://m.youtube.com/?dc=organic&source=mog&hl=en#/watch?v=pS5b8NM4jVU[/video]

That Shimano tech doc linked to earlier is for the older brakes where you need to remove the reservoir cover when you do a bleed. Your M675 (and all the other 2012/13 generation Shimanos) are slightly easier as they have a ‘bleed port’ which takes the yellow bleed funnel, and the Shimano instructions are here

My shimano xt 775 brakes are a doddle to bleed. No need for expensive shimano brake fluid, Go the local car shop…not halfords, Buy some citroen supension fluid for about 3 quid, the spanner for the bleed nipple, and a peice of tubing.

Find yourself a guide on yootube, a mug of coffee and teach youself the process in an afternoon.

I’ve just had an epic fail with my Epic bleed kit, oil everywhere. I tried to bleed my 2013 SLX brakes. When I got to the point where you push fluid back from the lever syringe, it leaked oil out of the lever reservoir. The nipple at the other end was definitely open too. The Epic method is as fiddly as the Avid way, if not more. I can do Avid brakes quite quickly and sucessfully but this just went very wrong!

Ordered the Shimano bleed funnel, will see how that goes. The Shimano method looks pretty straight forward…

dmorts, we are looking into this problem as we suspect that the plunger seal is swelling slightly when in contact with mineral oil. We’re looking to test other models to rectify the problem.

In the meantime may I suggest that you remove the plunger from the lever syringe and use it as an empty shell (working exactly like the Shimano funnel). This will enable the fluid to pass easily into the lever syringe housing and allow you to bleed the brakes without this problem.

epicbleedsolutions – Member
dmorts, we are looking into this problem as we suspect that the plunger seal is swelling slightly when in contact with mineral oil. We’re looking to test other models to rectify the problem.

In the meantime may I suggest that you remove the plunger from the lever syringe and use it as an empty shell (working exactly like the Shimano funnel). This will enable the fluid to pass easily into the lever syringe housing and allow you to bleed the brakes without this problem

I had this problem today too, would have loved to have known that earlier as loads of wasted oil, a grumpy wife and contaminated pads!

jsync, my apologies for the bad experience. We’re working on changing the online guide and instructions to mirror the advice given in our above post.

We’ve updated the online guide in the meantime to make everybody aware of the problem and the temporary fix.

Thanks for your understanding.

I had the same problem with mine as well, much better luck bleeding Avids!

dmorts +1

the exact same thing happened to me with my 2013 SLX M675’s.

I then purchased Shimano’s bleed funnel and used epic’s bleed kit excluding the syringe, works fine. I find the tubing stays on the nipple better if I remove the dust cap completely. You’ll also need a 7mm spanner BTW…

I use shimano’s guide click

I then purchased Shimano’s bleed funnel and used epic’s bleed kit excluding the syringe, works fine.

This is exactly what I did. No probs with Shimano funnel and the large syringe from Epic…

Personally I just ended up selling them and going back to Avids and have had no problems at all 😆

Thanks for the feedback once again to the people who’ve posted since.

I have made the situation clear to everyone on our online guide and we’re in the process of overhauling the guide as I type this. Keep an eye open later today for the revised method.

http://www.epicbleedsolutions.com/blog/how-to-bleed-new-shimano-brakes/