A good tip. When you've finished bleeding, use the syringe off of the caliper end to suck out the fluid from the syringe on the lever to reduce spillage. Great tutorial as always.
Best Magura bleeding video on the entire internet, wow! I'll try it out on my Magura tomorrow, hoping that the pressure point will be just as crisp afterwards :) Thank you for this video, thumbs up :D
I had my MT7s bled with old pads in. I wore the pads in the rear down to the base metal so bought new ones. Couldn't get the f'ing things in because the pistons wouldn't go back far enough to get them in place without one of the other pistons popping out again. I ended up opening the bled port a bit then pushing the pistons in to dump out the excess fluid. Long story short: if your pads are close to shot when you need to bleed replace the pads at the same time. 😅
Dave, SUPREME thanks for your efforts doing this, as well as the install on the trek rail5 from 3 years ago. Your work is priceless. My rear shimXT had a shattered piston, so I went wandering for a full brake replacement. Found the MT7 on sale and fell for it, like shopping while hungry. I'm so glad you did this video; the timing is perfect. Also perfect is the entire youtube universe of pain and suffering I'm finding about maguras just as I'm about to install mine. I suppose I'll wait until the levers break (no pun intended), then perhaps I'll try a Shigura setup.
This is an excellent tutorial on brake bleeding - very nice work. The methods used apply to every open system hydraulic brake, with the only changes being the connections to the lever and caliper. Tipping the bike can be avoided by just pulling the lever and holding it in to the bar with a rubber band or cable tie before disconnecting the syringe at the caliper - this seals the system at the lever end, so the fluid can't flow out. For filling the lever, I've had inconsistent results with the bucket bleed method you've shown. Connecting a syringe to the lever, as you've done at the caliper, and actively pushing brake fluid in and then sucking it out is significantly more effective. This works because the volume of the brake lever reservoir isn't fixed, there's a diaphragm that can move in and out as the brake fluid level changes, and there seems to be some dead volume in the lever that air bubbles don't always clear out of under gravity. As for Maguras needing more maintenance, this is news to me. I have a Louise I ran for well over a decade (It's still fine - just not on a bike at the moment), including 5 years of a daily commute that dropped 100 m in the first 500 m, which cooked it ever morning and all I ever did was feed it brake pads, tightened the lever adjusters (They drift enough that after a year or two the bite point has moved in enough to be noticeable) and I think I topped up the lever once. The joy of mineral oil brakes is that the oil doesn't degrade, attract water or strip paint, so the idea of regularly bleeding for any reason other than changing the brake line length or replacing a liquid containing part is just unnecessary work. Magura probably have some guff about regular bleeding now just to keep up with the others, but historically (20-30 years ago anyway) their attitude was just leave them alone unless you can feel air in them. Same story with Shimano brakes.
Good points, BUT, you definitely shouldn’t be pushing fluid into the lever as you suggested. The diaphragm you mentioned on these MT brakes is easily ruptured this way causing fluid to come out and requiring a new lever. There are several videos illustrating this on UA-cam already from people who fell into this mistake. You should only ever push or pull the fluid from the caliper 👍🏻
@@ZEODE Please show me one - It should be nearly impossible the rupture a thick rubber diaphragm with the pressures a hand on a syringe can produce - I'v e never seen it in 30+ years working on hydraulic brakes. It may be possible to cause a leak while pressurising the reservoir, but that leak will disappear as soon as the pressure is off and can be considered a design feature in most brakes as it acts as a safety valve against situations where the brake is overbled, or is bled on worn pads, which means there's too much fluid in the system when the pistons are pushed back for new pads later.
I have installed the mt5's on my wife bice I never had issues with bleeding them, people also have issue with sram brakes but me thinks it's about not putting pressure in the lever and sucking the last remaining bubbles, this process must be repeated until there's no bubbles. Not a few, not one. No bubbles ... 30 yrs of motorcycle care teached me to read the friggin manuals 😂
I’ve tried many times to replicate the OEM hard lever feel of Maguras. How do for example, Haibike bleed them on their production line? They certainly don’t spend 20mins per bike with syringes etc so there has to be a machine or system to produce solid levers. I have MT5 on a new bike and it’s absolutely solid, yet my own bled MT7 are good but I can squeeze the lever back to the bars.
Warranty .... XD What a nice joke =) Iam running on my Daily Shigura. Amazing biter! And the other drine got stock MT2 with Brakelight feature and because of the leverage and old grippy Blue Pads its fine and great enough for my Wife.
I don't know why, but bleeding my rear MT5 after I cut them wasn't a nightmare as people suggest it would be, it was fairly smooth without any seperate tutorial, just the Magura bleed kit and instructions 😅
Hi thanks for watching, that’s great it means you have done a good job, the method is important which ever information you have followed the result is the same, a good one
That's just to draw fluid through the system. I'd argue that you still need to vacuum at the lever after the caliper end is bled and sealed because specific to the MT7 (And I run 6 of them between a trials bike and two 29ers), the lever collects air bubbles that don't easily pop out of the lever by shaking, tapping the lever and flicking the lever blade.
Hi thanks for watching, little pockets of air can sit behind the pistons, this encourages them to come out easier, do it right you will almost see bubbles escaping the caliper
Infind them straight forward dave .great video.the carbotecture gets a lot of stick but magura have been making clutch and brake master cylinder parts for audi mercedes bmw for years without issue
@@tomekborucki1120 i think it does actually because the parts they make for BMW and have been for over 30 years are for there motorcycle decision and include brake parts. So what I'm saying is a 3 star Michelin chef is capable of making me a sandwich.
I find that to have a caliper thats full of fluid because the pistons are slightly poking out makes it easier to expel air, if the pistons are fully back there is no way of pushing fluid back up and out of the syringe.
Why not close the system at the brake handle first then the caliper? I did mine this way and rotated the bike but did not feel the need to remove the caliper as it couldnt drip from a closed system.
I like to see the lever bleed port brim with fluid that way I know that no matter how the bike is moved around when transporting of rinding the lever has no air in it at all.
Remove the wheel and the brake pads. A lot of brakes will come with a plastic block to put in where the pads go to keep the pistons separated, so this should go into the caliper after removing the pads. A tiny amount of brake fluid is all it takes to contaminate the brake, leading to poor brake performance and loud howling while braking. If you're doing this regularly like the Yorkshire Bike Mechanic, you'll have enough practice to automatically avoid the mistakes that will get the brake contaminated, but for someone who's doing it maybe once a year, the time spent in removing the wheel and pads will almost always be earned back in time you don't have to spend decontaminating the brake.
You can remove the wheel if you feel confident and use a spacer if you prefer. Removing the pads and using a block can sometimes give you a false hard lever feel .
And If your a real amateur take the wheel out of the same room your bleeding in.ive seen people take all the precautions then end up either knocking a bottle of fluid everywhere or blowing a hose off the syringe.a bit tongue in cheek but I've seen it happen.
Come on, that’s the most flimsy squeeze of a lever I’ve ever seen! Put your back into it. Two or three fingers and demonstrate you physically can’t pull it back to the bars! Only then will I believe it’s a firm lever. Your colleague summed it up perfectly.
1. All maguras I owned (2x julie, 1x mt4, 8xmt5) were leaking when attaching the syringe to the bleed port. I always lift the caliper above the lever when doing that. It takes 10 secs to rotate the bike when having a stand. And I don't add air to the system. 2. For every bleeding on any bike is recommended to remove the wheel and the pads - there are 2 nice bleed blocks from magura. 3. The best thing to do is attach a funnel with a threaded inlet to the lever. Ez emtb offers kits that are the best bleed solutions on the market. 4. The method I use (100% successful) is to remove the lever from the bar and rotate it while pushing the oil from the caliper. 5. The lever is the pain in magura case. Shiguras are very easy to bleed with 100% success rate. 6. Plastic-phantastic lever body doesn't belong to mtb product range in this type of applications. Their 1st attempt was julie that was a piece of junk. I had 2 issues with them and it was the only one situation when this happened in my entire brake history. 7. I buy mt5 brakes , easy to find in EU for 65 £ Incl freight and customs, and shimano levers (20-50£ per piece, depends on the model), sell brand new levers for 30-40 £ and run shiguras for 75£ with saint levers and they are easy to bleed, maintain and pain-free to use.
Just bought a new bike which checked all the important boxes in my wishlist, but only now did I notice it's got Magura brakes. I've never heard of that brand, which was an instant red flag for me, and now I know that flag is warranted. The brake feel is loose and spongy as heck, and the first video I found about it is this one. Fudge! I won't be able to perform this intricate procedure myself without screwing up badly, so I've no choice but to pay someone to do it for me (no, I can't just take it back to the shop I bought it from, because it's VERY far away, I had the bike delivered to me). Thanks for the video, at least I know not to even try it. 🙂
A good tip. When you've finished bleeding, use the syringe off of the caliper end to suck out the fluid from the syringe on the lever to reduce spillage. Great tutorial as always.
Good little tip there, cheers
This mans single handely saved me hundreds at a bike shop
That’s a great compliment, thank you.
Best Magura bleeding video on the entire internet, wow! I'll try it out on my Magura tomorrow, hoping that the pressure point will be just as crisp afterwards :) Thank you for this video, thumbs up :D
Thank you
I had my MT7s bled with old pads in. I wore the pads in the rear down to the base metal so bought new ones. Couldn't get the f'ing things in because the pistons wouldn't go back far enough to get them in place without one of the other pistons popping out again. I ended up opening the bled port a bit then pushing the pistons in to dump out the excess fluid.
Long story short: if your pads are close to shot when you need to bleed replace the pads at the same time. 😅
Hi, thanks for watching and your comments, yes that is quite common, it’s best to bleed with new pads in
Brilliant as ever Dave.
I always look forward to your videos.
Cheers.
Colin.
Thanks Colin
THANK YOU!!!! this is exactly what I needed. My brakes are now as good as new!
Dave, SUPREME thanks for your efforts doing this, as well as the install on the trek rail5 from 3 years ago. Your work is priceless. My rear shimXT had a shattered piston, so I went wandering for a full brake replacement. Found the MT7 on sale and fell for it, like shopping while hungry. I'm so glad you did this video; the timing is perfect. Also perfect is the entire youtube universe of pain and suffering I'm finding about maguras just as I'm about to install mine. I suppose I'll wait until the levers break (no pun intended), then perhaps I'll try a Shigura setup.
Hi and thank you so much, makes it all worthwhile, get the bleed and the lever feel right on magura's you cant beat them
Brilliant practical video
Real world experience
Thank you
Glad you enjoyed it, thanks for watching
This is an excellent tutorial on brake bleeding - very nice work. The methods used apply to every open system hydraulic brake, with the only changes being the connections to the lever and caliper.
Tipping the bike can be avoided by just pulling the lever and holding it in to the bar with a rubber band or cable tie before disconnecting the syringe at the caliper - this seals the system at the lever end, so the fluid can't flow out.
For filling the lever, I've had inconsistent results with the bucket bleed method you've shown. Connecting a syringe to the lever, as you've done at the caliper, and actively pushing brake fluid in and then sucking it out is significantly more effective. This works because the volume of the brake lever reservoir isn't fixed, there's a diaphragm that can move in and out as the brake fluid level changes, and there seems to be some dead volume in the lever that air bubbles don't always clear out of under gravity.
As for Maguras needing more maintenance, this is news to me. I have a Louise I ran for well over a decade (It's still fine - just not on a bike at the moment), including 5 years of a daily commute that dropped 100 m in the first 500 m, which cooked it ever morning and all I ever did was feed it brake pads, tightened the lever adjusters (They drift enough that after a year or two the bite point has moved in enough to be noticeable) and I think I topped up the lever once. The joy of mineral oil brakes is that the oil doesn't degrade, attract water or strip paint, so the idea of regularly bleeding for any reason other than changing the brake line length or replacing a liquid containing part is just unnecessary work. Magura probably have some guff about regular bleeding now just to keep up with the others, but historically (20-30 years ago anyway) their attitude was just leave them alone unless you can feel air in them. Same story with Shimano brakes.
Thank you for your great comments, good points raised.
Good points, BUT, you definitely shouldn’t be pushing fluid into the lever as you suggested. The diaphragm you mentioned on these MT brakes is easily ruptured this way causing fluid to come out and requiring a new lever. There are several videos illustrating this on UA-cam already from people who fell into this mistake. You should only ever push or pull the fluid from the caliper 👍🏻
@@ZEODE Please show me one - It should be nearly impossible the rupture a thick rubber diaphragm with the pressures a hand on a syringe can produce - I'v e never seen it in 30+ years working on hydraulic brakes.
It may be possible to cause a leak while pressurising the reservoir, but that leak will disappear as soon as the pressure is off and can be considered a design feature in most brakes as it acts as a safety valve against situations where the brake is overbled, or is bled on worn pads, which means there's too much fluid in the system when the pistons are pushed back for new pads later.
I have installed the mt5's on my wife bice I never had issues with bleeding them, people also have issue with sram brakes but me thinks it's about not putting pressure in the lever and sucking the last remaining bubbles, this process must be repeated until there's no bubbles. Not a few, not one. No bubbles ...
30 yrs of motorcycle care teached me to read the friggin manuals 😂
I’ve tried many times to replicate the OEM hard lever feel of Maguras.
How do for example, Haibike bleed them on their production line? They certainly don’t spend 20mins per bike with syringes etc so there has to be a machine or system to produce solid levers.
I have MT5 on a new bike and it’s absolutely solid, yet my own bled MT7 are good but I can squeeze the lever back to the bars.
Shiguras ftw 🎉
Can you do one on tec4s? Your videos are amazing 👌🏻
Hi, I will plan one in, I’ve got a few videos planned in first though
@@TheYorkshireBikeMechanic thanks I’ve got some new tec 4s would love that 🤙🏻 keep up the good work we love it
Warranty .... XD What a nice joke =)
Iam running on my Daily Shigura. Amazing biter!
And the other drine got stock MT2 with Brakelight feature and because of the leverage and old grippy Blue Pads its fine and great enough for my Wife.
I don't know why, but bleeding my rear MT5 after I cut them wasn't a nightmare as people suggest it would be, it was fairly smooth without any seperate tutorial, just the Magura bleed kit and instructions 😅
Hi thanks for watching, that’s great it means you have done a good job, the method is important which ever information you have followed the result is the same, a good one
I've done the vacuum thing on the lever syringe before, what's the difference with doing it at the caliper?
That's just to draw fluid through the system. I'd argue that you still need to vacuum at the lever after the caliper end is bled and sealed because specific to the MT7 (And I run 6 of them between a trials bike and two 29ers), the lever collects air bubbles that don't easily pop out of the lever by shaking, tapping the lever and flicking the lever blade.
Hi thanks for watching, little pockets of air can sit behind the pistons, this encourages them to come out easier, do it right you will almost see bubbles escaping the caliper
Infind them straight forward dave .great video.the carbotecture gets a lot of stick but magura have been making clutch and brake master cylinder parts for audi mercedes bmw for years without issue
Great point, I like them personally, get them right and you can’t beat them
What they can do for Audi or any other car manufacturer doesn't mean they can for bicycle brake product line.
@@tomekborucki1120 i think it does actually because the parts they make for BMW and have been for over 30 years are for there motorcycle decision and include brake parts.
So what I'm saying is a 3 star Michelin chef is capable of making me a sandwich.
Some people say to remove the pads and push back and lock the pistons would this not help?
I find that to have a caliper thats full of fluid because the pistons are slightly poking out makes it easier to expel air, if the pistons are fully back there is no way of pushing fluid back up and out of the syringe.
In your opinion, what is the easiest brake brand to service?
Hi, thanks for watching, shimano brakes are the easiest to bleed but easiest to service are Hope.
Why not close the system at the brake handle first then the caliper? I did mine this way and rotated the bike but did not feel the need to remove the caliper as it couldnt drip from a closed system.
I like to see the lever bleed port brim with fluid that way I know that no matter how the bike is moved around when transporting of rinding the lever has no air in it at all.
For an amateur bike mech would it be best to remove the wheel ?
Remove the wheel and the brake pads. A lot of brakes will come with a plastic block to put in where the pads go to keep the pistons separated, so this should go into the caliper after removing the pads. A tiny amount of brake fluid is all it takes to contaminate the brake, leading to poor brake performance and loud howling while braking. If you're doing this regularly like the Yorkshire Bike Mechanic, you'll have enough practice to automatically avoid the mistakes that will get the brake contaminated, but for someone who's doing it maybe once a year, the time spent in removing the wheel and pads will almost always be earned back in time you don't have to spend decontaminating the brake.
You can remove the wheel if you feel confident and use a spacer if you prefer. Removing the pads and using a block can sometimes give you a false hard lever feel .
And If your a real amateur take the wheel out of the same room your bleeding in.ive seen people take all the precautions then end up either knocking a bottle of fluid everywhere or blowing a hose off the syringe.a bit tongue in cheek but I've seen it happen.
I what way is this easier then the usual Magura method with a drilled syringe?
It's not easier but From experience the result is a better feel.
Come on, that’s the most flimsy squeeze of a lever I’ve ever seen! Put your back into it. Two or three fingers and demonstrate you physically can’t pull it back to the bars! Only then will I believe it’s a firm lever.
Your colleague summed it up perfectly.
1. All maguras I owned (2x julie, 1x mt4, 8xmt5) were leaking when attaching the syringe to the bleed port. I always lift the caliper above the lever when doing that. It takes 10 secs to rotate the bike when having a stand. And I don't add air to the system.
2. For every bleeding on any bike is recommended to remove the wheel and the pads - there are 2 nice bleed blocks from magura.
3. The best thing to do is attach a funnel with a threaded inlet to the lever. Ez emtb offers kits that are the best bleed solutions on the market.
4. The method I use (100% successful) is to remove the lever from the bar and rotate it while pushing the oil from the caliper.
5. The lever is the pain in magura case. Shiguras are very easy to bleed with 100% success rate.
6. Plastic-phantastic lever body doesn't belong to mtb product range in this type of applications. Their 1st attempt was julie that was a piece of junk. I had 2 issues with them and it was the only one situation when this happened in my entire brake history.
7. I buy mt5 brakes , easy to find in EU for 65 £ Incl freight and customs, and shimano levers (20-50£ per piece, depends on the model), sell brand new levers for 30-40 £ and run shiguras for 75£ with saint levers and they are easy to bleed, maintain and pain-free to use.
Thank you for watching and your comments
Just bought a new bike which checked all the important boxes in my wishlist, but only now did I notice it's got Magura brakes. I've never heard of that brand, which was an instant red flag for me, and now I know that flag is warranted. The brake feel is loose and spongy as heck, and the first video I found about it is this one. Fudge! I won't be able to perform this intricate procedure myself without screwing up badly, so I've no choice but to pay someone to do it for me (no, I can't just take it back to the shop I bought it from, because it's VERY far away, I had the bike delivered to me).
Thanks for the video, at least I know not to even try it. 🙂
This is the opposite of the magura tech videos really
Never had a bad bleed following the manufacturer method
Hi, thanks for watching and your comment.
Good god man, you're playing with fire leaving the pads and rotor in place.
I like life on the edge.