| Don't talk to me about bleeding brakes. They're not called bleedin' brakes for nothing...
I've got an MOT this afternoon, bike is all done and dusted, except for the back brake which I had just replaced a hose on and needs bleeding through.
It shouldn't be hard should it? Tube and a jamjar, crack the nipple as you press down on the brake pedal, hold the brake pedal down while you tighten the nipple, release the pedal...repeat and repeat until the brake comes in, done it loads of times.
Except for this time....been at it 4 hours now. Tried it with the brake caliper mounted, tried it with the brake caliper off the bike and higher than the master, tried it with one of thos Motrax 'little bleeder' one way valves, with ptfe tape and grease to stop air leaking back in past the threads.
In desperation, I've even tried taking the caliper off the bike, holding it sideways, taking the bleed nipple out altogether, filling the bleed nipple bolt hole with fluid, slowly squeezing the lever so that air bubbles through the fluid, then releasing the lever to suck back all the fluid into the caliper...that way, air comes out and when it sucks back, it gets a teensy bit more fluid in the caliper...I've done that until only fluid comes out and the caliper seems completely full, then put the bleed nipple back and done it all over again conventionally.
Nothing's working at the moment, pedal is still completely soft. The MOT is at 3:45 and I've had to stop work, cos I can only work outside and there's a bleeding great thunderstorm overhead....
Looks like it aint gonna happen and it's buggered my weekend plans...the sod of it is, I never use the back brake except for hill starts and getting through the MOT
Rant over | 
27-Sep-2009, 02:48 
Jools
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