Dirt blogger, Ace, finds a cheap solution to bleed your brakes which is bleeding useful.

Words and Photos: Ace Woodley

I have some 2007 Juicy 3 brakes, was never impressed with them from the off, and they needed a bleed from new, then they went into storage.

Due to swapping forks around to race I needed to re-use the old Avids. Front brake seemed fine, rear brake wasn’t, needs a bleed. So a quick google search for an Avid bleed kit (£20 last time I looked years ago) they are now £39.99 or on CRC £34.99 which is beyond a bit steep in price.

Another search turned up these chaps an all in kit with instructions posted to you in the UK for £12.99 bargain and worth a punt for the budding home mechanic.

What’s in the kit then, the official Avid kits come with pad spacers and sometimes with barbs, the epic kits come with, a “how to” sheet, a T-10 torx bit for the bleed grub screws, a pair of gloves, 100ml of dot5.1 fluid, an elastic band (third hand, holds the lever down) and two syringes with fittings and hose locks…£12.99

Never bled a brake myself until now.    Sit down, cup of tea, read the info sheet, then crack on. I did the back brake last week and used it over the weekend down at Woodland Riders, first practice run, lever pulls to the bar and the top cap is leaking. I believe I didn’t have the lever wound out enough when I bled the brake, causing problems, an easy fix in the car park, after that the brake was fine working well, just have to dial in the lever reach again. So time for the front brake to get done.

I won’t go into full detail, but just skim through the process, more information and tips are over on Epics website. As I am now a master of bleeding having only done it once before, I was brave and left the pads in the caliper. Prime a syringe with fluid and screw into the caliper, then attach the other empty syringe to the lever/cylinder. Then just push through around 15ml of fluid.

Skanky fluid gets pushed out the top, clean fluid in the connecting hose, that’s the easy bit done, you then faff about locking the red clamps and sucking the air out of the caliper, then the lever/cylinder. Took me about 45mins the first time with the rear, now I know what I am doing, I did the front in 30 mins, but no rush, take your time do it right.

Skanky old fluid on the left compared to the nice clean fluid on the right, not sure if it shows clearly in the picture but the old fluid is cloudy with bits floating about.

When your done, find an old bottle to dump the waste oil in, that’s my old fork oil in there as well, when it’s full I get to take it down the recycle centre and dump the lot in the waste oil tank.

The whole package is compact and tucks away nicely in the toolbox so will now be going racing with me,  the website is full of tips and information and they do a range of kits for other brand brakes as well  www.epicbleedsolutions.com.

I like things like this, cheap no nonsense that just does its job,  which is why the chaps at Epic started because they didn’t like the price of official kits either, well worth a look, easy to follow instructions, just make sure you check the lever blade adjustment, trying to bleed with the levers wound in will cause problems, apart from my error, fairly easy to do.

Ace.