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cheekysnaker
Hydraulic brakes. This is my first (road) set, and I've sort-of been looking forward to them/sort-of dreading it too. And I was right to... Like all things new, it was a complete pain first time around, and I'm not 100% happy.
The hoses were through a few days ago, cut to length and connected both ends. Well. I thought so. The front brake was first; being a shorter run, and pretty much vertical, I thought it would be easier. To get the fluid in/bleed, I have a funnel-cup thing for the lever port, and a syringe and tube for the lower port. I filled both with 20ml mineral oil, and the antics began.
To cut a long and frustrating story short, I probably got half the oil on the floor via a number of booby-traps; the hose pops off the caliper bleed nipple far too easily, and generally once you are squeezing oil at pressure into the system. Sometimes when you are looking at the funnel thing, so you don't spot until half a syringe of oil is soaking your sock. There are torque settings for the hose fastenings, but show me the open-ended torque wrench? So, I thought I had the rear hose properly screwed into the caliper. Apparently not. I discovered when I had filled the non-drive-side chainstay with mineral oil and it started coming out of the BB hole. And the bubbles, the neverending bubbles!
Anyways. I have some lever now. Sadly, the bite point isn't quite the same; the front has a longer pull. But I'm going to leave it for a few weeks, wait for any air to hopefully rise to the top and repeat this wonderful job again.