What a tool
This month we look at a brake bleeding kit. What is it, how does it work, and is it any good?
WHAT IS IT?
A tool to aid and speed up the bleeding of your bike’s brakes.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Unless you’re riding speedway, brakes on a bike are up there with wings on a plane. They’re pretty damn important and, just like every mechanical system, they’re susceptible to fatigue. The more obvious points of wear are the discs and pads, but it’s worth remembering that it’s good old brake fluid that’s powering your endos (assuming your bike’s not fitted with cables and drums… like those in museums). Through active use, brake fluid heats up, cools down and is susceptible to dilution from condensation caused by the process. Most fluids are hygroscopic, which means they actually draw moisture into their mix, which exaggerates the dilution process and lowers the fluid’s boiling point (because water boils at a lower temperature than oil). All of this is bad news for your anchorage, made even worse by pad debris and dust that gets drawn into the fluid via your piston seals and muddies the water further… so to speak. The point is, just because the level of your brake fluid might be looking suitably full in your master-cylinder reservoir, the liquid inside could be about as much good as a holed welly. So what do you need to do about it? Well, you need to change the fluid, of course. This is a relatively simple task in itself, often played out by a man with a coke can and a clear piece of plastic tubing. That’s fair enough, I’m not here to judge to show a different way to master this essential process.
Bikeservice offer this bleeder kit, that sees a hand-actuated suction pump draw fluid into a collector unit, eliminating the mess and chaos of improvised fluid bleeding. The kit features several different lengths of clear tubing and loads of different caliper nipple fixtures, and simply requires poking the different parts into one another to create a fluid/ air-tight link from the nipple to the sunction pump. The idea is that by squeezing the trigger, having cracked open the bleep nipple, fluid is drawn from the brake line and down the clear tubing, eradicating the need to pump the brake lever to force the fluid through the tubing.
IS IT ANY GOOD?
From a clinical point of view, it’s brilliant. I’m used to winging this job and knocking over the collector receptacle more times than Boothy can count (at least five). The coupling of the system is effortless and the process to remove the fluid from the lines is clean and easy. That said, it’s not the quickest of processes, as the force of suction is a little lesser
than the force created by pumping a brake lever to flow the fluid. Unless you’re in a mad hurry, that shouldn’t bother you too much. Given the option of using this bleeder, and all its secure couplings, or going back to the aforementioned process, the bleeder wins hands down for me… if simply for the agro-free removal of paint impeding brake fluid. Admittedly, it’s a pricey alternative to a can and a piece of tubing, but how expensive is it to have your wheels sprayed if you knacker the paint work? I’ll leave that thought to soak in...