First of all, I have my Juicy Bleed Kit, which includes some Avid DOT Fluid. This is the barbed end, and just a Olive or Compression fitting. Then, it comes with two syringes with special hoses and little adapters that thread into the brake.
I am going zip tie these on here, because this barbed fitting is very secure in that clear hose, but I don't want to run the risk of this hose pulling off of the middle of bleeding. This type of a system has a reservoir, that if there had been bubbles in here, it can come to the top of the reservoir, and if it stays above the fluid, then when you pull the lever, it won't be going back down into the hose, and that must be what happened, because it must have been a slight amount of air anyway that I got in there. But I am going to go ahead and bleed this system anyway.
The first thing I do is fill one of my syringes, draw fluid up; one third or so. Now, I am first going to -- I don't care if I squeeze the air out of it. I am going to seal that off, and now I am going to pull on this, and you can see how air bubbles will appear. You can see them growing, kind of tap that around, and get those bubbles together. You pull them -- pull little suction on it, and that bubble gets bigger and it does that with all the little bubbles that are in the fluid, and that way you can ensure that what you squared into the brake has no bubbles in it either.
Then we are going to get that bubble up out of here. We should have a syringe that's pretty much bubble free and actually can still see a few bubbles sitting on the surface of the plunger. It will be nice if we can get those too. You pull on it and how those just come out of nowhere, pretty cool.
The first thing you do with that Avid for the bleed is you rotate this to vertical, so that the reservoir is leveled, and then you turn this out to its maximum pad contact position on the left lever, that means turning it clockwise, fully on the right lever, its counterclockwise, and now we go down to the caliper, this is a Torx T-10, this comes with the Avid brake, Torx T-25 on the one end for the rotors and a Trox T-10 on the other end for bleed. So now I am going to undo the bleed plug, and I have got my rag if they are ready, and then I am going to thread in the bleed syringe.
Now, I put on a rubber band onto the lever to pull the lever. So now what I can do is open this, using only your thumb to push on it, you don't want to pull too hard. What you are going to try and do is pull any fluid out of the caliper that's in there. So see if I can pull anything, any bubbles up out of the caliper. I am now going to remove the caliper so that I can jiggle it and get any air that might be in there, out more easily. If the caliper is already adjusted, then leave those bolts tight, all you need to do is tighten these, and back down again, and it will be all ready to again. I am going to lock this bleed.
Now, I am going to do the same thing I did before, mainly open this hose clamp and pull up with my thumb on the bleed, and try and see if I can get any bubbles to come up out of the caliper. This bleed point is now the highest point in the caliper and any bubbles that are stuck in behind, these I should be able -- the pistons I should be able to get out this way.
Now I am going to lock this back down, put the caliper back in place. So the caliper is now done, but I leave my bleed syringe on there, because I am now going to run fluid up through the whole system. I am going to remove that rubber band, that hand on the lever, keep the lever in this position so that any bubbles in the lever will go up into the top of the reservoir, and now I am going to remove the bleed plug from the lever.
Now I am going to put in this syringe. I am going to open the syringe at the caliper and I am going to, squeezing down, so if I have got any bubbles in the air, that will stay up, and I am going to squeeze and begin filling this syringe at the lever with fluid.
So both of them have about the same amount of fluid, and I am going to close off this syringe at the caliper, and now I am done at the caliper, so I frame my bleed plug back in.
Okay, now we go back to the lever. I have now got fluid all the way up through the hose and the caliper is empty of air. So now I am drawing a vacuum on the lever, to pull bubbles up into it. Once I am getting no more air bubbles coming up, then I rotate 45 degrees above horizontal.
Do the same thing, try and get any bubbles that are stuck behind. Now I am going to go back down, in vertical position, pull back in, and I am going to push fluid a little bit and see if I can get anything to happen.
Then you go back and forth like that a few times to make sure that you are getting no more bubbles anywhere, and once you are sure that there are no more bubbles, you can then bring the lever so that your bleed port is straight up and find your bleed plug, and now I am going to pull the lever; it sure ought to be good. Yup. Then you can adjust again the pad contact point, this makes the lever be further inboard when it contacts with the rotor. And now I am going to flip the lever back into the position. Now you can set the lever up the way that you want it and tighten it in place and you are done.
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