Brake Bleed?

mtnbiker5

mtnbiker5

Active Member
I have Avid Elixir CR's. I've noticed my rear brake lever has been coming in pretty close to the bars even after I made the adjustment to the handles to try to bring them out a little more. I'm thinking my brakes need to be bled? I checked online on the Avid Bleed Kits. Seems like I can get one for around $50. My question is does it make sense to do this at home or should I just bring it to my lbs and have them do it? Will/should it cost more than $50 to bleed my brakes and is this normally what this means with the brakes anyway? Thanks.
 
Check to see if your pads are worn. As they wear, the space between the rotor and pad gets larger and you have to move the lever more to make up the difference. If that's the case, it's a quick fix.

Remove the wheel and CAREFULLY and SLOWLY squeeze the lever so the pads move closer together slightly. Then mount up the wheel and see how it feels. If you've squeezed too much, you need to push the pads back in so it clears the rotor. Use the Avid pad spacer to push the pads apart slightly.

It's a bit of trial and error, but it works and it's quick after you get the hang of it.

If that's not the problem, the pads may be contaminated. Try new pads. If that's not it, then yeah, the brakes may need to be bled.

If you decide to do it yourself, check out YouTube. The videos are great and are better than the instructions that come with the bleed kit.
 
No, I did it myself after I shortened up the lines. I think I paid like $35 at Pricepoint for the kit. I gotta imagine that a good LBS would charge about the same or so.
 
Avid bleed kit from ebay, under $20. Brake Fluid from Walmart under $5

Do it yourself, it's easy.

-Steve
 
mtnbiker5 said:
Thanks for the response. Any idea how much a lbs roughly charges for brake bleeds?
Click to expand...
Yeah I had to break down and send mine out to the shop yesterday they said its bout 12-15$ and a 3 day turn around and I tried like hell to do it myself so I didnt have to wait.
 
Learn to do it yourself. Avids more or less suck IME (3 bikes). They'll be just fine for some time - maybe a couple of years - but will then start to need more frequent bleeding. My rear brake more or less seizes up when sitting in high heat for a time w/out a fresh bleed. Spray some brake cleaner on the pistons as stuck pistons are a frequent problem.

The upsde is they're a pretty good value until they start to go...
 
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