When fitting these hoses is it a case of bleed existing hose, replace with braided hose and carry on with bleeding normal bleeding process? Or do you empty the whole system of fluid and replace all the hoses before filling the system?

Damian.

Cheers Martin,

Much Appreciated.

Damian.

Never bleed all the fluid out of the system - you'll have a hell of a job getting all the air out when you refill.

I would suggest:
- remove the cap from the reservoir, put a piece of polythene (eg supermarket bag) over the top and screw the cap back on
- change the hoses - you shouldn't get much fluid leak, 'cos the polythene stops any air entering the top of the reservoir
- bleed the system a normal - all you'll have to do is get the air out of each new hose via the bleed valve on the caliper.

...but if you're fitting braided lines you should really have a DOT 5.1 fluid, so a fluid refresh might be in order. If so, change all the hoses (either two or four) and then you need to bleed the brake furthest from the reservoir first, until the new fluid bleeds out (usually detectable by a change in colour). Then do the one the next furthest from the reservoir and so on.

The only thing you need to know is which is the order of distance from the reservoir...and I don't apart from it will be the rears if you are changing all four! I suspect you can just take the straight line distance of each caliper to the the reservoir as an indication of the length of each brake line.

Should only take a couple of hours for all 4 hoses and a complete refresh (famous last words..!)


[Edited by MartinM - 2/7/2002 9:11:45 AM]