How To Bleed Shimano Hydraulic Disc Brakes

Bleeding Shimano disc brakes is simple when you know how. Improve the performance of your bike with our how to.

If your disc brakes are feeling spongy, it could be because there is trapped air in the brake hose. If this is the case, bleeding your brakes could solve the problem. This may sound like a daunting job, but if you have the right tools it can be made much easier.

In this video GCN shows you how to bleed Shimano brakes. The technique is the same across the Shimano range, and the general principles can be applied to most disc brake systems out there.

As your brakes keep you safe, please take your bike to your local bike shop if you are at all unsure when it come to servicing them.

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Music licensed by Cue Songs
Music - licensed by Cue Songs

[Jooeffoh]

If you don't want to remove your pads etc and still keep them from
getting contaminated, just wrap the caliper with a piece of cling film
covering the pads, pop the bleed valve through the wrap and it will stop
any accidental fluid to pad contamination.

[alexsalo]

Best style - thanks! No bs, no ads, no slow blah-blah - awesome job!

[TheMadStrater]

There are some missing steps here as others have said!  You should purge any air from the syringe before pushing through the caliper.  You are missing the steps of passively releasing air (and a little mineral oil from the caliper) and positioning and flicking the levers several times to remove any remaining air in the reservoir.  You should most certainly remove the wheel and pads and secure the proper bleed block between the caliper pistons...

[batbawls]

"careful not to spill any fluid" then yanks the tube away like a mad man

[djevil]

As a bike mechanic myself, this is a great informative video.

[NiSiochainGanSaoirse]

This is perfect Information, delivered concisely and to the point, which is precisely what I was looking for.

I clicked a number of American videos first, and each of them was about 15 minutes long, and spent a long time waffling or going step by step from unboxing to fitting, which is not necessary. Just the information about how to actually fill it once it's all installed was all I needed.

Thank you

[DrSlang]

Good and concise video!  But I would highly recommend removing the brake pads and using a bleed block.  It's true that once you get good at bleeding, your chances of contamination get pretty low, but why risk it?  It only adds 30 seconds or so to the procedure and it's worth eliminating that potential trouble spot, especially if you're not experienced with bleeding.

[timquirk]

Be sure not to spill any fluid <spills fluid all over the calliper with the pads in>

[AlexGreenwoodUkulele]

I know a person who's addicted to brake fluid. He can't stop himself.

[dudewheresmybeer]

You definitely need to remove your rotor (wheel) and your pads and place them in another town while you do this. The mineral oil gets

[madjockmacsporran]

Thanks for this video. I decided to get my bike, that had been abandoned for 2 years, going again and the brakes didn't work at all. I wasn't sure how to fix them. I used your advice and now it's all good again!

[ROKKET]

Thanks guys. I'm The World's Worst Home Mechanic & that took me about 15 minutes. 👍

[tusk_]

Thank you so much for this video. It's the exact model calipers I have and I've never done this before. I spent about an hour just trying to find a video or manual that made this simple to understand. Your video nailed this in less than 5 minutes. Now I feel so much more confident knowing how to fix this next time without having to look anything else up online.

[jesusjavier]

Nice short, simple and foremost a encouraging video.

[SDG-cvbr]

Thanks that took less than 5 minutes now my brakes work perfectly.

[samuelparkman]

Great tutorial, even though my Deore M575s are a little different configuration, you provided enough information about why you did the specific steps for me to figure out the things that were different. Specifically, the valve release is a nut just behind the feed nipple, not a hex screw on top. Otherwise, after a slow step by step for the rear, I was able to breeze through the front with no help! Thank you for sharing!

[cryptoanjuna]

Simple, easy to understand guide to follow. Thank you

[Icehso]

Just a note. If you have cheaper oil use it in the top cup to fill it just a bit. Then push the new oil in and when all bubbles and old oil is out shut the valve. You're just gonna toss the oil in the cup anyway, and none of the cheap oil will go down. No sense tossing the expensive oil.

[Jbone]

I did everything he said now I'm in a hospital bed in a body cast

[gcn]

The procedure should be pretty much the same, yes - I'm not sure of the specifics of the SLX brakes though.