Ok guys, so I put on new pads/rotors and SS lines on the front of my F3 last night. I got it all swapped out pretty easily and proceeded to bleed the brakes.

Here's where I started having a problem.. Obviously with new lines it took me a little while to get the fluid worked through the lines, but I eventually got the bleeder nipples spitting and started the squeeze, loosen, tighten rotation until I was only seeing fresh fluid coming out and no bubbles.

So you'd think I'd be good to go. Well I have 2 problems at this point. First of all, I still have little to no additional pressure in the brake lever. I continued to bleed the brakes for quite a while and didn't really see any air coming out. I was tapping here and there on the master cylinder, lines, banjo bolts, trying to free up any air pockets that might be hiding in there. No progress. My other problem is that the pads didn't firm up against the rotors; from everything I can tell, they haven't moved at all since I installed them.

So what do you guys think?? Does it sound like air is still in my brakes somewhere? Do I have another problem I'm missing? Any thoughts or suggestions at all??

I'm going to the local parts store today to pick up a bleeding kit in hopes that it will be more effective than my hand bleeding, but I can't help but think there's something I'm missing or there's another problem here..

Incidentally, I changed my rear lines/rotor/pads about a month ago with no trouble at all bleeding, so it's not like I'm incapable of bleeding me brakes...

I couldn't ride my bike into work this morning and this is really killing my mood... Please help!!

 

Humm, first off, check all your connections from the new brake line installation very carefully. If there's a loose connection, you could loose pressure that way. Also, make sure the lines aren't binding up anywhere cutting off flow of fluid. I'm sure you've checked all of this...just going thru a thought process for you though.

B/f bleeding, make sure you have plenty of fluid in the reservoir. Yeah, I know, more than likely it will overflow & get messy...just a hazard of bleeding...but its important to have enough fluid in there that the reservoir doesn't empty out to allow air to get into the line.

When bleeding, I make sure the nipple is finger-tight, then back off just a hair...bleed & quickly finger tighten it...repeat. This works very well for me.

Don't forget to wipe off your rotors w/ mineral spirits or other similar cleaner.

Don't let it get the best of you. I'm sure its just something simple. Once you've got pressure, those pads should seat properly from caliper pressure. W/ new pads, I ride around my neighborhood & do a few hard stops to make sure all is well b/f proceeding out onto the road.

Brakes can indeed be annoying. I've been there too. Good luck.

 

Yea I checked all the banjo bolts and lines for any loose connections and everything seemed snug and sealed and the lines are clear and unkinked. One thing about this setup, and maybe something to do with this is tripping me up, is that its different from the stock config because it uses what I guess I'd call a "double-banjo" bolt at the reservoir to mate 2 seperate SS lines to the reservoir whereas the stock setup split to two lines down near the right-side caliper. I wasn't quite sure how to deal with that in bleeding it or if I needed to do something special, so what I ended up doing was kind of going back and forth between the two calipers and bleeding each for a while.

I did make sure to keep the reservoir close to topped off to keep from sucking air in, so I think I'm good there.. though I definitely had some spillage, haha.

As for bleeding, I had basically been doing something similar to what you're recomending except that I was just keeping my 8mm monkey wrench on it instead of using my fingers since the nipple was getting pretty slick.

Thanks for the heads up on the mineral spirits. I was thinking about some rotor cleaner and had not planned ahead on that one, so I'll have to remember to grab some later when I hit the parts store.

Like you said, I'm sure I have one problem and I'm seeing both of the symptoms from it. I can still only determine that there must just still be air in the system somewhere and I'm hoping using a vacuum setup will help me be more efficient and effective here than the manual pump-n-purge strategy. I got a serious forearm workout last night!! lol Never on all the ATVs and cars I've done brake jobs on have I had such a time trying to bleed brakes!

Anyway, thanks for the help man and anything you or anyone else could think of that might help would be greatly appreciated! Hopefully I'll get home from work and the bleeder kit will work like a charm!!

 

Lesson learned:

Its all about the vacuum pump for bleeding brakes. Took me about 20 min to get it all sorted out. lol Glad I wasted 2 hours last night trying to bleed it by hand..

 

Had same problem with an ATV my buddy had replaced a master on, had to get the "vacula" out and suck those lines good. Works great on cars too, but definately a must for total overhaul of a bike's brake system

 

Glad you got it sorted out. Sometimes special tools can be worth their weight in gold.