Brake bleeding - How To

[sticky]

analternative to the water bottle  ( if you concerned about water gettin back into the brake system ) would be to use brake fluid in the bottle, or go to napa and pick up a self bleeder kit  ( bout 6 bucks) the self bleeder has a check valve on the end to keep anything from being sucked back into the brake system

[AusCBR600RR]

   Hi just to let you know you should not use water in the bottle that the hose runs into. Brake fluid is hydroscopic, it absorbs water, or moisture from the air.

Any water in the fluid lowers the boiling point and results in a spongy brake, because of the air bubbles when water boils. It also helps rust and that can cause pitting on the piston or caliper and leaks to happen.

Use brake fluid and you have no problems.

Hope this helps from Aus
 

[Jeff]

Sure.  if you want to be ultra-safe, use brake fluid.  But the fact is, if you follow the instructions, you won't suck air back in, and the fluid which is exposed to the water (or rather exposed to the AIR which is exposed to the water), will never go back into the caliper or line system...

But brake fluid is cheap and you don't need much, so if it makes you feel better, by all means, use it. 

[bame]

my brake fluid has never been changed, i have an 03 with under 7 thousand miles on it. have any of you guys changed the brake fluid just cause (not cause of new lines or air bubbles) and if so how long had it been since your last change an did it make much of a difference.
im still deciding whether i want to do this or not. im sure it cant hurt but would still like feed back, thanks.

[marcmcm]

my brake fluid has never been changed, i have an 03 with under 7 thousand miles on it. have any of you guys changed the brake fluid just cause (not cause of new lines or air bubbles) and if so how long had it been since your last change an did it make much of a difference.
im still deciding whether i want to do this or not. im sure it cant hurt but would still like feed back, thanks.

I change mine every year.  It makes you stop and it's cheap.  Well worth it.  And I thought you were the big year-round commuter on that thing how do you only have 7000 miles.  Mine will turn over 10,000 miles this week and I rarely commute anywhere.

[tarmac]

I used to use Jeffs method (except with Brake fluid in the bottle) and it would take me about  10 - 15 minutes to do the job properly. Then I started to sell the brake bleed kits here in Australia but I could sell them I had to give them a full test.
It cut the brake bleed time down to 5 minutes total for both sides. I was very impressed with them.
You can still do the bind up over night trick as well if you want but to avoid the need, let the bottle of fluid stand over night and be careful when you pour it in so you don't put the tiny air bubbles in the system in the first place.

[ToyCBR]

Another trick is to reverse bleed the brakes. You can get a pump at shucks or a similar store, the process changes a bit as you have to suck the extra fluid from the resivoir, i have used a clean turkey baster. i have not done this with the 600 just with my dirtbikes. Also to note, make sure the bleeder valve is very clean or you will end up forcing dirt and other contaminants into the system.

As I look at it it would seem that you would have to have two pumps to do this on the front end... not quite as cost effective but it should still work, and it makes it an eaiser 1 man job.

[OveRReV]

the "bind up overnight" trick works i have been going loco bleeding out trapped air from my master cylinder & banjo/banjo bolt area for sometime now thanks to Jeff for a helpful topic. 

[Bounce]

I change mine every year.  It makes you stop and it's cheap.  Well worth it.

+1.

I flush the fluid on all the vehicles once a year.  It is cheap, easy, and gives you a reason to sit on the floor in the garage grunting like Tim Allen.

Note:  Don't reuse last year's bottle of fluid.  Once the bottle has been opened, if you don't use it fairly quickly, throw it out and go buy more.  My rule is I will not keep an opened bottle more than a month, but I've never seen a hard figure from any of the manufacturers, so use your best judgement.

[stunt101gear]

I need help with this. In the section that explains how to do the intial bleed, you state to add fluid into the reservoir. There is nothing that mentions putting the reservoir cap back on or not befor bleeding. So my question is, do you do it with the reservoir cap on or off.

[DakotaCBR]

Cap is off, because you'll need to keep topping the liquid off while you bleed the air bubbles out. Don't let the liquid level get so low that it empties the reservoir, or else you'll just be adding more air into the system.

[stunt101gear]

I did it with the cap on and the cap off. When I did it with the cap off, the fluid would flush through the lines and would be completely out of fluid with 3 or 4 pumps. The piston on the caliper is not moving.

[DakotaCBR]

It might take a while to get them to come out. If you are doing this for more than 5-10 minutes and they still don't come out, your seals may be bad or your pistons could be filthy, causing it to stick in the caliper. The seals could need replacing. Before I push the pistons back in I make sure to clean the dust off of them.

[DakotaCBR]

Try closing the bleeder, pumping the brake lever a few times, and then opening the bleeder with the lever depressed.