Thread: Bleeding 11" brakes

I would imagine you haven't bled it properly.
You did adjust the brakes up first before bleeding ????
I bought a one person bleeder kit from supercheap.
seems to work well.

whitehillbilly

I adjusted the snails to allow for minimal piston movement, and then tried it again with them out. Just wondering why theres still air in when I bleed the system only fluid comes out. Ill have to give that single person bleed system a go then.

If it works after pumping, it is not air. The pistons are retracting. Most likely you have the shoes in wrong so the adjusters can’t work. It is easy to get them wrong.

Sounds like to me that the shoes are not adjusted up first.

Wind the adjusters out hard so the shoes are locked to the drums - check if there is pedal once you have done this - it will tell you if it's air or an adjustment issue.

Also, if they are new shoes you'll almost certainly need to radius them to the drums - this isn't hard to do at home - I'll see if I can dig up the post I did when I last did this.

To amplify above - if you can pump up the brakes and the pedal is hard, not spongy, it is not a bleeding problem. If you can pump up the pedal so the brakes work but the pedal is spongy, you have a bleeding issue.

You may have both!

Possibly more common than air is the system are :- shoes incorrectly assembled, adjusters not staying put, drums out of tolerance, shoes not radiused to the drums (although unless badly out, you will get them to work, but frequent adjustment will be needed), drums out of round (I had a new one like this!), shoes not sitting straight (only early ones with adjustable steady posts), incorrect master cylinder pushrod clearance.

Note that if you really do have a bleeding issue, the system can be bled at any joint. clamp off all three flexible hoses. Confirm you have a solid pedal, bleed at joints as needed to get this, and if you still cant, fix the master cylinder issue - I have seen reports of faulty master cylinders. Then release on clampat a time and bleed that part of the system, again, using joints to bleed if necessary, but start at the bleeder.

Hope this helps - in over twenty five years running my 2a 109, I have never had issues with bleeding brakes.

Fantastic response all. Ill start with the brake shoes then, one wheel at a time. The symptoms are pump 2 or 3 times, each time the pedal travels less but still firm once under suitable pressure. When my wife was pumping the pedal, she did mention how at times it took only two pumps, then the next bleed it was back down to the floor again... very inconsistent.

Cheers,