Weight Weenies

Hello there,

I built up my 'Winter' bike over the weekend using an eTap groupset I had previously used for another bike but I sold the later in the spring and since then the groupset was sitting in the basement - after I had bled the brake fluid completely. After re-assembling the groupset onto the new frame with new brake eTap hoses, I wanted to re-bleed the system.. and well.. I can't.

No fluid is entering the system from the shifters - as-in .. plural.. I have the very same problem with both of them. The fluid enters the shifters.. but that's it.. as if something inside the shifters was blocking / blocked somehow and not entering the hoses. From the other end however, the calipers, it does work perfectly fine (you can hear and see from the amount of fluid entering the system that way it goes into the brake hoses) so I am a bit confused what's going on here. I already double-checked the obvious and potentially "embarrassing" things I might have done wrong (opened the clips of the bleed kit and double-checked the hose-connectors (barbs/connectors/compression ring) into the shifters).. but nope. All seems 'correct' but there is no fluid going/flowing between shifters and calipers.. anymore.

Does anyone know what might be going on or wrong here, or what I might have overlooked? Oddly their Hrd Service Manual does not include a strip-down / re-build instruction for the shifters.. or well.. the hydraulic part of it so I am somewhat heistant to disassemble it myself but maybe someone had a similar problem and knows what might be going on.


Thanks,
-Jörg

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Did you have the lever reach/contact point adjustment wound in at all?

grover wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 25, 2018 3:44 am

Did you have the lever reach/contact point adjustment wound in at all?

When I started the bleeding/refilling process I wound the contact adjust counterclockwise until it stopped (following the manual & https://youtu.be/mO5lipPGGlo) .. which it basically did.. after just very few degrees (read: I never wound it (much) in before).

Is that wrong / should it not be wound back/counterclockwise ooor is there a ‚too far back‘ (I didn‘t use force to wind it back)?

Thanks!
-Jörg

Alright - as it turned out it was my fault and for everyone having similiar problems, do check whether your compression fitting that goes over the hose barb is fully threaded on - in my case it wasn't and therefore the shifter's port inner mechanism doesn't open. If you look into the port the hose goes into, you see a small silver circle with a hole in the middle. If the hose and compression fitting do not properly connect with it, the fluid doesn't flow and thereby appearing to be blocked..

So yeah.. my bad.. but I learned something along the way.

Cheers and thanks @grover!

Thanks, useful info.

Saved me making the same mistake when I first need to bleed my eTap brakes.

jbattermann wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 25, 2018 11:07 pm

Alright - as it turned out it was my fault and for everyone having similiar problems, do check whether your compression fitting that goes over the hose barb is fully threaded on - in my case it wasn't and therefore the shifter's port inner mechanism doesn't open. If you look into the port the hose goes into, you see a small silver circle with a hole in the middle. If the hose and compression fitting do not properly connect with it, the fluid doesn't flow and thereby appearing to be blocked..

So yeah.. my bad.. but I learned something along the way.

Cheers and thanks @grover!

Thanks for this Information, I have the same problem. Would you please send the picture of this part "compression fitting that goes over the hose barb is fully threaded on". Is it in shifter or in caliper? Or maybe you mean it is inside the part of house hood assemble in shifter (one of the part which labeled with "STEALTH A MAJIG ONLY" and the 5-6nM sign there). And how is the proper way to do fitting on that compression, is there any suggestions how we do that or how we put the olive properly.

Thanks a lot

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perbikean wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 13, 2021 3:23 am

Thanks for this Information, I have the same problem. Would you please send the picture of this part "compression fitting that goes over the hose barb is fully threaded on". Is it in shifter or in caliper? Or maybe you mean it is inside the part of house hood assemble in shifter (one of the part which labeled with "STEALTH A MAJIG ONLY" and the 5-6nM sign there). And how is the proper way to do fitting on that compression, is there any suggestions how we do that or how we put the olive properly.

Stealth-a-majig compression fitting = what you call the olive. Just thread it on as far as it will go, when threaded in all the way the top of the olive should be flush with the top of the pin threaded into the hose.

When I first installed my AXS groupset I managed to thread the Stealth-a-majig fittings on backwards which had the same result, no flow of fluid at all. That had me very confused for a while as installing them backwards works just fine if done on older SRAM groupsets with mechanical shifting.