Front hydro brakes are soft

[Wifesblaster]

I bought some hydro brakes off an 03 a couple days ago. I installed them with new pads. I bled the sh*t out of them with dot 4 fluid. I started bleeding them the traditional way. I thought there was some air still trapped so I bought a vaccum bleeder. I am confident I have all the air out. The lever has pressure, but I can still pull it to the grip. One caliper seems to be working better than the other. I can see a little gap between the outer pad and the disk. Do the pads just need to wear in? Do they make a rebuild kit for these calipers? Is that my problem?

 

[245stroker]

I'd say that if one works better then the other then theres still air in the system. When I replaced my lines with braided ones it took forever to get them bled. jmo though

 

[karterphil]

be sure all of your lines are in good shape and are not expanding. if they are ok i think your calipers may need to be torn down and re-built or at the least cleaned, if there is no fluid leaking.

 

[Wifesblaster]

be sure all of your lines are in good shape and are not expanding. if they are ok i think your calipers may need to be torn down and re-built or at the least cleaned, if there is no fluid leaking.

I'm almost positive there is no more air in the lines. I am no stranger to brakes. When I had the vaccum bleeder hooked up I didn't see anymore air bubbles. Them I did the whole pump, hold, open, close about 4 times to each line to double check. The caliper that doesn't work that good moves a lot more when I pump the lever.

 

[Wifesblaster]

No fluid leaking, and no hoses buldging.

 

[Awk08]

happens to every set of fronts i do, there is still air in the system. it's usually trapped in the master.
try bleeding them by cracking the line on the master, then at every connection down to the calipers.
same way you do the bleeders, pump it up, hold the lever in, crack the banjo bolt, close the banjo bolt, then release the lever.

 

[Wifesblaster]

happens to every set of fronts i do, there is still air in the system. it's usually trapped in the master.
try bleeding them by cracking the line on the master, then at every connection down to the calipers.
same way you do the bleeders, pump it up, hold the lever in, crack the banjo bolt, close the banjo bolt, then release the lever.

I will give it a shot and post results shortly. Thanks.

 

[Wifesblaster]

Got it! No luck with the banjo bleeding. I took the caliper off an pumped the lever until the piston was all the way out. I pressed it back in, pumped the lever, and cracked the bleeder valve. A little pop of air and she's good to go. This has been a long build that is finally coming to an end. I will post pics and update mods in sig. Thanks for everybody's help, made this build a lot easier!

 

[Awk08]

sweet, i was going to suggest taking the calipers off, the gsxr's i do require them to be off, and the bleeders facing up for them to bleed correctly

 

[Blaaster]

Just an addition, sometimes in the banjos a little bubble can lurk and cause bleeding nightmares.

I bleed at the banjo first and tap the banjo gently to break the surface tension of the bubble that may be clinging to the inner surface.

When bleeding at the bleeders I flex and tap the lines a little, it only takes a bubble the size of the head of a pin to make a soft lever.

 

[Wifesblaster]

Good advice. I will try that next time. Your right about the amount of air. There was only a small pop of air left in there.