How to Fit Braided Brake hoses.

Fitting Braided hoses.

First thing are to do are make your decisions. Do you need braided hoses? Well most people fit them because they make you stop quicker. Some people fit them because they have been advised that their original rubber hoses have deteriorated and are out of shape. Other people fit them ‘coz they look good’. Next thing you have to choose is the brand and colour you are going to use. I chose Goodridge braided hoses in tarty red shrink wrap (thank you Busters-accessories). I also went with stainless steel fittings although they are available in other offerings such as anodised aluminium or chromed. (warning- mixing alloy and steel fittings can cause corrosion). If your original banjo bolts are in good condition you can still use these however you MUST use brand new copper crush washers (should really come with the brake line kit).


1. First thing to do when fitting new lines is to make sure you protect your paintwork wherever you think there may be a risk off dripping any brake fluid as most people will know it is quite nasty and strips paint quite well.
2. Bleed original brake lines. I did mine by connecting a clear plastic hose to the calliper nipple and undoing the nipple.


When they have finished draining tighten the nipple up again, disconnect the hoses from the calipers and stuff some rag into the banjo to stop it dripping everywhere
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Some people may syringe the fluid out from the master cylinder then just undo the caliper banjo bolt and catch any remaining fluid (make a note of how the banjos look at this point, there should be one that is slightly bent). Don’t know if it makes any difference but I was advised to do the left hand caliper first (thanks Robby) as it is furthest away from the master cylinder and if you are doing it with the bike on its sidestand then this is the lowest caliper.
3. Undo all little clips holding the hoses in place. Undo the banjo bolt from the master cylinder (you still have your rag there?) and remove the original hoses making sure you don’t drip brake fluid everywhere.

4. Loosely put your banjo bolts on to your braided hoses and put the hoses into place (longest hose goes to left caliper). Now attach the banjos to the banjo bolts in the calipers. Put a copper crush washer on each side of the banjo and thread bolt into caliper.

5. Now attach the other end of the hoses to the double banjo bolt into the master brake cylinder. Now check that the hoses run into all their appropriate fasteners and nothing snags (new banjos don’t hit clocks or fairing do they?)

If everything is ok then tighten up all banjo fastenings to the hose, to the calipers, and to the master cylinder.
6. Now the boring bit. Fill the master cylinder up with fresh brake fluid, Dot4 is common for road bikes, (you still got that rag?). Starting with the left caliper attach your clear hose to the bleed nipple and undo half a turn, a small amount of fluid should come through. Now tighten up again, squeeze the brake lever in. Undo the nipple half a turn, you should see fluid come through the clear pipe and the lever pressure will drop

Tighten nipple again, release lever. Repeat this sequence of lever in, nipple open, nipple close, lever out, until the brake fluid coming through the clear tube is free of air bubbles. Now do the same on the right hand caliper. *remember to keep topping the master cylinder if it needs it!
7. Your hoses should now be full of nice fresh fluid. Make sure you have the correct amount of fluid in your master cylinder and put the top back on it.
8. Pump the lever hard and check all connections for leaks. Check your steering and suspension travel and make sure nothing snags. Everything okay? Jobs a good ‘un.

Take the bike for a little test run, being cautious with your new sharp front brakes.



Little Cheat.
This is a little something that makes the initial part of bleeding the hoses a bit easier. Ideally you connect a syringe to the clear pipe which is connected to the caliper nipple and create a vacuum to pull the fluid through the new hoses. However I didn’t have a spare syringe lying about, so I made a simple device to create the vacuum using a squeezy ketchup bottle with an extra hole in it. Connect clear hose to ‘normal’ hole in the cap. Squeeze bottle. Cover ‘newly made’ hole with your thumb. Let the bottle return to normal shape and this should create a vacuum. It may not be a massive vacuum that it causes but it is certainly enough to draw the brake fluid through. So now the sequence becomes, create vacuum, undo caliper nipple, watch the fluid come though the clear pipe, tighten nipple. I used this method at the beginning of the bleeding process but finished off the job in the more standard way using the brake lever.

 

Cool guide, I was looking into braided lines for the VFR until I realised it was £200+ for a 10 line LBS kit :O