Bicycle disk brake bleeding

I bought this bike on closeout from Jensons USA – paid under $400 shipped, but the front brake never worked that great.

filth flyer

this is what it has - Hayes Stroker Ryde Hydraulic, 160mm Disc F&R

Hayes sells a kit to bleed these ($45 at the LBS / $30 online). The guy at the local bike shop tried to talk me out of the kit and suggested that I just pay the $45+ to them to fix it as it is a huge PITA to work on these brakes.

The Hayes YouTube videos make it look simple, but the comments suggest it is anything but.

I have a mityvac brake vacuum bleeder for motorcycles that looks like it would be easier, but you need a special adapter that threads into the master cylinder.

Has anyone ever messed with these? Should I just suck it up and buy the kit or pay the bike shop to do it?

I didn't buy the kit and just tried with a one-man bleeder setup. Never got satisfactory results. Although when I finally took it to a shop to do it they found I was losing pressure at the seam of the caliper. So maybe it wasn't anything I was doing wrong? They just disassembled and sealed it with silicone. Works fine now after a few years since.

If you buy the kit and it works, it will probably never be needed again. But if you don't have luck with it, you'll be paying somebody to do it anyway.

I hate paying someone to do something I think I can do, but sometimes results are all that count.

I have no experience with these brakes, but I have found that many troublesome brake systems in all types of applications seem to like being reverse bled. That is, pushing the fluid up from the caliper to the MC.

You can do it with the might vac by connecting the line that usually goes to the vac nipple on the pump to the discharge nipple instead. Have fresh fluid in the cup and a dip tube going down into the bottom of the cup. Pressurize the cup and push the fluid out to the caliper.

I do this often enough that I've come up with a better way. I bought a cheap "high pressure" oil squirt bottle from HF. It is only used for brake fluid, and I use it in conjunction with the hoses and misc accessories from my mighty vac kit.

I should add that bouncing the pedal, or in this case lever, once you see fluid in the reservoir helps work the air out faster.

You may want to ask ECM about this.

Honestly I would let the shop do it. They have the experience to spot issues that the casual bike home mechanic can miss, and they also likely have small parts that may be needed that might not be included in the kit. If you end up needing a warranty part, having it serviced at the shop goes a long way toward getting that covered, vs having opened the system yourself. Plus, DOT fluid is corrosive and eats paint, so if the bleed gets messy or has a leak, that's not fun. As much as I know GRMers love doing their own work, and bicycles seem less complicated than most cars, this is a job (much like bicycle suspension work) that I would let the shop do.

Nice bike BTW!

Called 3 bike shops. They will take over 2 weeks to get to my bike and need it dropped off to get in the que. I guess I will try it myself. I have not had any issue working on street and dirtbike brakes, this shouldn't really scare me.

Without the bleed adapter for the master cylinder, you're asking for trouble.The rest of the kit can be cobbled together though. I bought the bleed kit (stroker trail and stroker ace on my bike) when I changed my hoses to pretty orange ones.

The hose included with the kit is too short and makes bleeding a total nightmare. Buy some more clear hose from Home of Hose or Hosewerkz. Watch every video you can find and look at Hayes' instructions online too.

Make sure the master cylinder is horizontal. The trick seems to be getting the air from the caliper to go up into the bottle first, then pushing the fluid up into and through the master cylinder. strumming the lever gets the bubbles out of the master cylinder, but it seems you really have to do a lot of it to get all of the bubbles out.

It's DOT4 fluid, which you can get anywhere. I got a bottle from Walmart. The bottle included with the kit should be way more than enough unless you run into issues.

wow i'd forgotten that some brands use DOT brake fluid... I have always gone with companies that just use mineral oil for simplicity... but it is interesting to watch the vid... the process is slightly more complicated then the shimanos where you only push fluid up from the bottom and fill the reservoir that way...

I personaly would spend the extra for the proper kit just for simplicity sake...

for safety you might try removing it from the bike, and I certainly would remove the pads as they are very easy to contaminate

Hayes has a basic bleed kit for the Stroker line - it's ~$20 if I remember right. I got my kit from AEBike. It comes with a little bottle of DOT4 and it should be enough if you buy some extra clear plastic hose and are patient. I berkeleyed up my first attempt and ended up getting more DOT4, more hose and watching every vid I could find. All strokers use the same lever/master cylinder, except the Rydes don't have the quick reach adjustment of the Trail/Gram/Ace.

I just picked the bike up today form the shop. Glad I took it there, the owner of the shop said it was a royal PITA and took him way longer then he planned. He only charged me $20.

I dropped of my other bike for a tune up, tubes and tires