- On occasion, you may need to swap your brake hoses over.
This could be, because you got a hire bike
and they're the wrong way round for you.
Or perhaps, you bought a bike using direct sales,
it's come straight in a cardboard box.
One thing to bear in mind though,
if you're not confident with hydraulics,
definitely speak to your local bike shop.
However, this is quite a simple process
and we're gonna take you through it today,
using a Shimano brake.
For this video, we're gonna be looking at Shimano brakes
and that's because Shimano are right and left specific.
Unlike Sram or Avid brakes, we can just
take the lever clamp off and swap the whole levers over.
With Shimano brakes, it'll operate on mineral fluid.
This fluid is not corrosive and
it's not harmful to the skin, however,
you might wanna use some eye protection
in case the mineral splashes and
you might wanna wear rubber gloves.
This is a quick and easy process
just to swap your hoses over, if you're careful about it,
you won't need to do a full brake bleed.
However, if you do spill oil,
it's more than likely you're gonna need to.
For this job to swap the hoses,
you're gonna need to an 8mm open ended spanner,
you'll need a 2 and a 1/2 mm
allen key or hex wrench,
you need a 4mm allen key or hex wrench,
you need the Shimano bleeding funnel with the plunger,
you need some mineral fluid, a rag
and some kind of cleaner or isopropyl alcohol.
Before you get started with this job,
you might want to put your bike on a work stand,
or if you haven't got one, get a friend to
hold your bike still so you don't jog it.
Also, and most importantly, you want to make sure
that if any oil does drip from
the brake levers in the process,
it can't get on your front disc rotor.
So firstly, I'm gonna work on the front brake here,
which is on the right for me
and I'm gonna use the 4 mil allen key
just to level off the brake levers so it's horizontal,
this will be clear in a later step.
Okay, so firstly, you need to remove the rubber boot
on the end of the lever here, that's just covering the hose connector.
Now when you're ready, get your 8mm
open ended spanner and just undo this hose connector.
With the hose connector unwound,
just slide it back on the hose
and then your next step is actually
to remove the hose from the lever.
When you do this, it's good to have a firm tug,
to release the olive which is set into the lever.
Got to bear in mind, as you pull it out,
you might lose a bit of fluid, it's not that important
at this stage, be try and be as delicate as you can.
So at this stage, it's vital to not touch the brake lever.
If you operate the brake lever in anyway,
you're gonna lose fluid and that means
you're gonna have to do a full brake bleed.
The whole point of this process
is a quick and easy solution.
So whilst my front brake lever is now
separated from the hose, you're gonna repeat the same
process with the back brake lever.
Now it's time to reconnect those brake hoses into levers.
Again, make sure that you don't touch the brake lever itself
because you don't wanna lose any oil
and have to do a brake bleed.
So it's literally is the reverse process of
taking the hoses out the levers to start with.
So you take your brake hose, you push it
back into the lever, you wanna make sure
that the olive sits home, you'll feel it slightly
click into place and you get your hose connector,
thread that back in again, careful not to cross thread that.
Tighten that back up with your
eight millimetre open ended spanner.
Once that is done, you might need to give it
a wipe with a rag if there's any oil around the edge
and then put the rubber boot back in place.
At this stage, if you've done everything right,
you could technically use your brakes.
Just gonna demonstrate with the right hand lever,
which is now the back brake, it feels
nice and woody just as these should do.
However, we're just gonna be doubly sure
there's no air in the system with a quick fix here.
We're gonna take this funnel, which is
a Shimano bleeding tool and a two and half mill allen key.
As you remove the two and a half mill allen bolt,
just be careful because there's a little o ring around this,
you don't wanna lose that.
With the funnel in place on the top of the lever
and a small amount of oil inside there,
your lever is actually open so
air can travel out, if there's any in place.
Gently squeeze the lever a few times
and you may or may not see some
air bubbles rise to the surface.
If you do, it's a good sign because
that means they're out and that is job done.
While the brake lever is pulled to the bar,
gently tap the hose as well, all the way along
to the actual lever, just to help
any air bubbles travel along, that maybe in there.
If you wanna be extra careful in this step,
repeat this process all the way along the cable
from the calliper to the lever.
This particular bike has got internal rootings,
it's not really an option, if you're gonna do this
on your bike with external rooting,
hold the lever to the bar, you may wanna use a
cable tie or a toe strap to do this
and work your way along, gently to the bars.
At the end of the process now, you need to
put the plug into the funnel, just to make sure that
when you remove the funnel, you don't drip oil everywhere
and carefully remove the funnel from the lever.
As this oil is unused, I'm gonna return this
to the bottle it came from, however,
when you are bleeding brakes, it is
important to not reuse the old oil.
Now that I've put a two and a half mill top cap bolt
back in place, done the same on the front brake here
and I need to return the wheel to the bike,
just to check everything works.
Just before you're finished, make sure
you give the brake levers and handlebar area,
a good wipe down with some brake cleaner
or some isopropyl alcohol, just to make sure
any residue of oil is removed.
Also, really important thing to note,
if you have done this procedure on a higher bike,
make sure you either alert the owner
or return them to normal, not good to
have the brake on the wrong side.
You're at the end of task now,
don't forget to just reset your brake levers
to a preferred angle, good to go and hit the trails.
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if you wanna know more about Shimano brakes
and how to bleed them, click down here.
If you wanna know about Avid and
Sram brakes, click down here.
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