Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

Well my calipers are back together after fitting new genuine seals, what's the best method to try
get these to bleed up? I have tried the following methods;

Gravity bleeding
Cracking the master cylinder line ( has no bleed nipple )
Cracking the caliper brake lines
Pump & crack the bleeders
Pneumatic sucker
rubber hose on bleeder into a container of brake fluid and just pumping

Seems to just be holding air somewhere , I assume the master is causing me the grief. I am getting a
very spongy lever at best. All the pistons have popped out to where they need to sit.

Please any idea's ... happy to try anything !
Thanks in advance.

I've always sucked it through with a long hose one side at a time. Just remember to spit........

you could always get one of those one-way valve bleeder things from Supercheap ? I never rated then until trying to bleed some brakes on a GPZ600R - it was literally 3 pumps and the lever was really firm.

Did you chuck new pads in as well? They can feel spongy until you've actually bedded them in.

I've just not long done this on my bike. I pumped about 3 full reservoirs worth of fluid through each caliper (no sense leaving half a bottle of fluid) then I rode my bike around and around town until I hit reserve, just so the General public and mr plod know my bike is on the road again and to bed the new pads in.
Final step was brake lever cable tied on over night and released in the morning.
I also changed back to OEM kwaka brake pads as the flash EBC ones weren't worth a pinch of shit when cold, especially in the wet, the factory ones have a much nicer initial bite from cold. YMMV but that's what worked on my old pig.

New pads , new discs ! Just took it round the block , it is not pulling up to well .
The problem seems to be affecting the right calliper mostly I think because a ) pistons
Seem to pull back in too much and you can here the pad slapping and b) temp of right
Discs would be half of the left .

This is doing my head in !

Cable tie the brake lever to the bar and leave it over night to see if any air bubbles rise up to the master cylinder

you could take each caliper off the fork-leg - one at a time. Pull the pads out. Then pump the lever once or twice just to see if all pistons are moving. If they are - good, If not - you will have to check the condition of the piston & seal that is not moving.

If they are all moving - there is a real easy way to pump the air out of the system. Take the m/c cap off and soak out most (not all) of the fluid. Then use a small G-clamp to compress each piston back into the caliper until it bottoms-out. Don't squeeze the shit out of the clamp - just turn it until you can feel the piston reach the bottom. Do this for all pistons (its a pain in the arse for 6-piston calipers ). What you also need to do is keep a real close eye on the fluid level in the m/c - as you push each piston back into the caliper, fluid will travel up the line and into the m/c. You may need to soak a bit of fluid out each time so it does not overflow.

Once you do a complete caliper - re-fit the pads, bolt the caliper back in - and then do the other side the same way.

When the other side is done - check the level of fluid in the m/c and top-up as needed. You should find that you can pump the lever once or twice - the fluid level will drop pretty quickly so keep topping-up - and after maybe 6-8 pumps - you should have good lever pressure.

This method pushes every bit of trapped air out of the lines and back up to the m/c. It is a bit more fiddly with 6 pistons but it works