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Re: What's wrong with my brakes?

To: spitfires <spitfires@autox.team.net>
Subject: Re: What's wrong with my brakes?
From: Richard B Gosling <Gosling_Richard_B@perkins.com>
Date: 12 Oct 2000 07:43:42 -0500
Thanks to all who advised me on my brakes (Patrick, Craig, Chuck, Tim, Eric,
 Howard, Bill, Michael, David. Greg, Doug - God, there's a lot of you helpful
 guys out there!).

I just bled my brakes during my lunch brake, using an Eezibleed kit.  Dead
 easy, once I'd got a decent seal between the fluif reservoir lid and the
 reservoir.  I was a little overenthusiastic on the first wheel, and ran out of
 brake fluif, so ended up pumping pure air all through the pipes directly
 between the reservoir and that wheel.  I added some fluif to the bottle in the
 kit, and kept bleeding until I had air-free fluif coming through again.  I
 haven't done any harm doing that, have I?

Anyway, after all that, and not getting much air out (except when I blew the
 system through - my point is there wasn't much air in the system before), my
 brakes are still as bad as ever.  Symptoms unchanged - first press lots of
 movement, second press works fine, very repeatable, doesn't matter how hard or
 fast I press the pedal I always get soft first press, hard second press.

So, I guess it's M/C rebuild time.  And then I can bleed it all over again, oh
 joy!  Presumably, since the rebuild should only allow a little air in at the
 top of the pipe where it connects to the M/C, I don't need to bleed the whole
 system again, I can get away with just bleeding the wheel closest to the M/C,
 a good long bleed to allow any air that got in to pass through, but no need to
 bleed the other wheels.  Right?

BTW, this is the first time I've ever bled my brakes (yes, I know, should be
 regular maintenance, but somehow I've never got round to in in the 2 years
 I've had Daffy), so I want to check I'm bleeding for a reasonable amount of
 time.  I'm getting a slow-ish dribble out of the end of the pipe I'm bleeding
 through, and I keep going for maybe 20-30 secs after the last little air
 bubble comes through, probably little more than a minute on each wheel.  Is
 this enough, or should I keep going longer?

Thanks!

Richard and Daffy (still more go than stop!)

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