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Indeed. Having recently bleed both a Shimano and a Magura set, bleeding Sram brakes is the best thing that can happen to you. Easy and clean. I almost spilled mineral oil on my head bumping the bike and spilling it from the cup when bleeding one of the two above.
At the turn of the last century, having purged imperial sized hex keys from our tool boxes, the bike world enjoyed peace in the form of The Metric System (SHCS edition). But complacency set in and some unnamed evil force introduced Torx, like Sauron they poured their cruelty, malice and will to chafe knuckles into this tool.
You wouldn't have to jump between Allen and Torx keys if here were no Torx. Resist! Fight evil! Fault them at their logic! Say no to Torx!
Also, what's up with Sram using Torx everywhere except to remove Dub cranks where ∞Nm is often required? I'm not a fan. </rant>
There are stems that have a 3 mm Allen for the handlebar and a 5 mm Allen for the steerer. There are still bikes that have a 5 mm Allen for the rear axle and a 6 mm for the front axle (though for that one I cannot fathom why we ditched QR through axles, so much so I had an UDH compatible Maxle made).
It's not a problem jumping between torx and Allen, it's about jumping between different sizes primarily. I never know if the pad pin on sram brakes is 3 mm or 2,5 mm (it's 2,5 mm) because I am SURE it used to be 3 mm. Calipers are 5 mm. Shimano brake levers are 4 or 3 mm. Shifters are 6 mm??
If I have to choose allen vs. torx, I'd choose torx though. I know it will probably be an unpopular opinion, but it's just better. Much less prone to stripping. Why 2,5 mm Allen key pedal pins can't be torx is beyond me. I get most people don't have torx keys, but if you don't have eirher it's all the same. </rant>
God I hate needing three or four different tools to install one component. the 10 speed era shimano brakes were the worst. How did it go? 2mm to pop the stupid latch for the lever clamp open, 2.5mm for the bleed port in the lever, 3mm for the brake pads, 4mm for the lever clamp, 5mm for the caliper bolts? Something like that.
Edit: Oh yeah, plus a T25 for the damn rotor bolts.
Did you work on the Level Ts though? No bleeding edge port on the caliper, shitty access of the lever reach bolt, generally way messier on both ends than all other brakes I worked on apart from the Hope master cylinder shenanigans when you unscrew the syringes. The whole spiel with two syringes and need of vacuum is just silly IMO, plus even the expensive SRAM bleeding kit leaks air from the hose assembly when pulling it and the clamps are hard as fuck to operate. I had to drop the caliper to the floor and angle the bike to get a semi-decent bleed and even after three tries, there's still a small stubborn bubble somewhere that rears its ugly end while riding randomly.
They shall be binned after the winter season is ovah.
For sram brake pad pins you can use the same T10 that you use for taking the lever bleed port cap off. (Learned it directly from Sram at one of their tech clinics)
I’d love it if bikes completely switched to Torx, it’s a much better standard. My Husqvarna 300 has a ton of them and I’ve really grown to like them.
Anybody have any suggestions for a "pro level'" syringes for a reasonable price? Almost $200 cad for the pro mineral oil SRAM kit seems excessive when all I want is the syringes and fittings.
this looks decent for the price
SRAM WORKSHOP BLEED KIT - MINERAL MODELS – Essential Cycles
Holy fuck $110 for two syringes and few pieces of plastic?
this is canadian pesos, so probably $20USD lol
https://soshanger.ca/en/home/5563-bleedkit-sram-workshop-mineral-edition-bk-90051.html
this one is slightly cheaper for sram mineral with decent syringes.
Surprisingly enough you are supposed to read the manual to find out torque specs not just guess based on what type of head is on the fastener.
If you're not Ali/Amazon/ebay averse there are a number of options that fall under the 'good syringes, under $100' requirement. I've one from RiderAce for mineral oil brakes that's been perfectly fine in use that was maybe $30 or so when I got it. As with all bleed kits, the best thing you can do for em longevity wise is give them a clean after use. Flush with water then spray down with isopropyl and let em dry after.
The designer should be selecting an appropriate fixing size/tool size for the application. Good design should make it easy for the user to get it right and hard for them to get it wrong.
That makes no sense at all. There are 6mm hex bolts on my bike that range from 5nm to 20nm torque spec. By your logic either my shock would fall out or my front wheel axle would be crushed.
Torx> hex
Convert all my bikes over
BleedZone SRAM Maven Hydraulic Disc Brake Bleed Kit – BleedZone LLC
Found this as well, $53 CAD on Amazon.
Just because that is what is on your bike, does not mean it's well designed, some of these fixings/torque values are probably not the appropriate choice. In your example.the thread size is completely different between the two fixings though, so I would expect a different torque. Ideally this would be with a different tool size also.
There is a great book called The design of everyday things, by Don Norman that I would recommend reading on the subject.
Indeed.
As I said "I've never stripped the threads from a Magura master..." but this seems to be a pretty common occurrence. It strikes me that having the torque called out in the manual is often insufficient which is why said perhaps it would be helpful if they they offered some visual cues on the parts such as having "...the torque spec debossed on the clamp."
They've been making these brakes for 10 years now so if it were costing Magura too much in warranty replacements or bad press I assume they'd revert to their previous design where the carbotecture material was fortified with an aluminum clamp. With that said, the whole Shigura thing was originally devised by folk who'd stripped either the clamp or bleed threads from their Magura levers. I have Shiguras' on my bike so I'm grateful for this😁.
Always like a good book recommendo.
Agreed on this one, though having one tool to handle everything is also a good design choice from the user's perspective.
The thing is, even with a T25 bleed screw, you won't do much damage if you have an aluminium body and a steel screw. The problem lies in having a plastic screw and a plastic body and speccing a tightening torque that is easily achieved 'finger tight' by only tightening by twisting the round stem of the T25 torx wrench without using the perpendicular extension(s). Screwing plastic bolts in plastic threads is just not a common thing and I think that's a big part of why people are stripping those.
Best bleed syringes for holding vaccum?
Yes, reading torque specs is helpful, but I think that's a pretty high bar to expect for every one of the hundreds of bolts on a bike.
Deiter Rams is a pretty smart designer, and he said good design is honest, and it should make a product understandable and useful. Speccing a big tool interface with a low torque spec doesn't seem very honest or understandable, and stripping the threads of your master cylinder doesn't seem to make the product useful, either.
Another smart person, a park ranger who was teaching my group of friends about trail design and maintenance, told us to design trails for the way people are, not the way we want them to be.
I've been really impressed with the Bleed Zone stuff. I've got several of their stuff and it impressed me.
Not to mention that if a bike is high use, those bleed screw heads will be weakened by exposure to temperature change and uv radiation, and leading to failure and torques below spec.
Wait, wait, wait... did you suggest washing out brake syringes with water? This is the first time I've heard of that suggestion. Is that for mineral oil only, or for DOT fluid too? Can other people jump in here to confirm or deny?
If water works as a first step, and if it's kosher to mix water with the residual brake fluid during the cleaning process, it would be great news for me. I've always done isopropyl and nothing else, but it's always felt like a quick way to burn through Isopropyl and because I'm not blasting whole bottles worth of isopropyl through the syringe I can never quite sure that I got all the old brake fluid out.
I'm a huge fan of DOET by Dan Norman, and tell people about it all the time. I think I read that whole book in two days. I hurt my neck from nodding along in agreement as I was reading.
Yes to both. I rinse with water first, follow up with a couple squirts of iso, then let em dry while disassembled. If I'm feeling frisky I'll blast em with the compressor. I got to thinking about it as one of my original mineral oil kits had a seal swell up, which was a bummer since I paid for the 'factory approved kit', i.e. way too much for a couple fittings and a cheap syringe..... I'd been doing this with my DOT kit for years and decided if it was good enough for granddad it was good enough for the mineral oil kit. Been two years plus and the seals haven't degraded.
For my DOT brakes I have a water filled spray bottle (same one I use for ride wrap). Since DOT is hygroscopic, you really don't need anything more that water to do a thorough cleanup. Once in a while I also rinse the syringes with the same spray bottle and throw the water as hazardous waste.
For my mineral fluid brakes I clean up using a Iso 70% spray bottle. I don't use 99% because it evaporates too quickly. Water and mineral/oil are immiscible hence a solvent is needed.
I rinse my DOT kit w/ water, shake as much out as I can and then flush w/ IPA and let everything dry, for mineral oil I disassemble, let everything drain as much as possible, then flush w/ IPA.
Been doing it that way for years...
Post a reply to: Nerding out on Brakes shall we? Not another tech deraliment