Jump to content

Solution To Brake Freezing?


Sam Moss

Recommended Posts

i dont think i would ever put that through my magura....

Works fine, just use proper cycle oil not vegetable :)

Its 50% water, 45% antifreeze, 5% oil and a tiny drop of washing up liquid to emulsify it, stir it all up and syringe bleed as normal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had nothing but trouble using water and i'd never use it in a maggie again. I use royal blood now which of course will not only keep the system lubricated but its not going to freeze anytime soon and in the real world when riding it feels no different to water.

It lasts for ages, is cheap and is good for your brake.....no point f**king around with home brew methods just drop a couple of quid and you're sorted!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I use royal blood now which of course will not only keep the system lubricated but its not going to freeze anytime soon and in the real world when riding it feels no different to water.

You're in that typical Royal Blood user delusional state. There's literally no way you can say that Royal Blood feels anywhere near as good as water - it just doesn't. Having a nice, light lever feel is awesome for pretty much everything. It's fully noticeable doing anything where you're feathering your brake. If it's just an on-off brake pull then I can maybe see that it might not make all that much difference, but for anything other than an on-off pull there's a massive contrast.

The main thing to remember is just that when you change from mineral oil to water is that you really, really need to air-flush the system out, otherwise you end up getting a load of white gunky stuff in your brake which is going to drastically affect how good your brake feels. We did a super quick bleed on my brake to go from oil to water, and after a week I re-bled it. The stuff that came out of my brake was raaaaaancid! We pumped some air through it, re-bled it and it felt amazing straight away.

Re: Brake freezing, the clue is in the name. Anti-freeze. You can use a really diluted concentration of it too, so it's not going to have the chance to corrode your seals or anything (not that it really would anyway).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I completely disagree to there being a massive contrast - there just isn't.

I used water for a year or so, at first it was great - lovely and light then i gave the brake the clean of its life, taking it all apart and getting everything out of it so the pipes and internals were as clean as you could get. Thats when the trouble started.

Sticking pistons constanlty, the lever being the worst culprit. The piston would just not return ever, the seal seemed to swell up creating a load of friction meaning evetime the level was pressed there it would stay for all eternity. Water doesn't lubricate your system in any way and only jams it all up (if you clean the brake properly like you say) so for the sake of a tiny differance in feel for a slightly heavier brake it'd rather have a brake thats not going to freeze, need rebleeding every few months and more importantly stays lubricated allowing my pistons to move as they should.

Everyone bangs on about lever feel so f**king much....yeah as light as possible is great but for just a small sacrifice like i say isn't actually really noticable when you're out riding all day to ensure that on top of a drop/gap...or any type of move what so ever that i know when i let go of my lever to release the power my pistons aren't going to say 'f**k that' were staying closed and i die! Water just is not enough of a improvement or difference to warrent its use, the benefits are just too marginal for the shear amount of negatives.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I completely disagree to there being a massive contrast - there just isn't.

I used water for a year or so, at first it was great - lovely and light then i gave the brake the clean of its life, taking it all apart and getting everything out of it so the pipes and internals were as clean as you could get. Thats when the trouble started.

Sticking pistons constanlty, the lever being the worst culprit. The piston would just not return ever, the seal seemed to swell up creating a load of friction meaning evetime the level was pressed there it would stay for all eternity. Water doesn't lubricate your system in any way and only jams it all up (if you clean the brake properly like you say) so for the sake of a tiny differance in feel for a slightly heavier brake it'd rather have a brake thats not going to freeze, need rebleeding every few months and more importantly stays lubricated allowing my pistons to move as they should.

Everyone bangs on about lever feel so f**king much....yeah as light as possible is great but for just a small sacrifice like i say isn't actually really noticable when you're out riding all day to ensure that on top of a drop/gap...or any type of move what so ever that i know when i let go of my lever to release the power my pistons aren't going to say 'f**k that' were staying closed and i die! Water just is not enough of a improvement or difference to warrent its use, the benefits are just too marginal for the shear amount of negatives.

Water is amazing! your obviously doing something wrong!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When riding comps, lever feel makes a big difference.

RE: sticky pistons. Thats the reason people have come up with these emulsions. Mike Singleton is working on one I believe. They're all water based with a small percentage of oil to keep the seals lubed up.

Edited by King C
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I Cannot speak. How can anyone think there is little difference between water and oil, your obviously doing something wrong. I always used to do mine with the whole break submerged under water in a bucket or sink, that way no air can get into the system. Jobs a dream.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is a huge difference in the feel between a system bled with water or magura blood. Personally i had reservations about the lack of lubrication that a waterbleed would provide, but the difference in feel more than offsets this for me. Having spoken to many people that have used water bleeds for a long time and not having any reliabilty/seal failures due to this, i think by the time any issues may come about i would have bought a new brake anyway. If i do get any issues with my brake freezing then i think the water/anti-freeze/oil/washing up liquid sounds good enough to me.

On a side note, Vee brakes dont freeze, but currently theres only one pad i'd use on my Vee and they dont make it anymore.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How the f**k can you do something wrong when bleeding? What a stupid question. You put water in - no air, job done. It did work for me, it was nice for a while like i said but it didn't lubricate, theres no point arguing - that IS what happened, and thats why I don't use water. How can anyone expect water to lubricate? The reason most of you guys probably can run water bleeds fine (like i did for a long time) is that there is probably traces of the original oil in there acting as a lubricant.

If you do removie it all, clean the cyclinders, pistons, chamerbs, pipes etc and use only water you WILL run into trouble. Remember the fluid that comes in maggies when you buy it is not the same as Royal blood, royal blood is a much thinner version.

The emulsions i've heard of people using are bullshit, they will just seperate - the tiny amount of fairy liquid does not keeping the oil and water mixed at all. I've made copious amounts of emulsions and they all seperated resulting in sticking pistons again. I've heard of plenty of people haveing the same trouble as me - probably the people who actually cleaned there brake out properly in the first place - not something i'd advise if someone does want to use a water bleed.

If you have removed every single trace of the original oil and used various water bleeds with nothing else mixed in and you've had no sticking pistons then you are very lucky and i am exceptionally pleased for you. If water worked for me i would have stuck with it - but it didn't so royal blood was the best solution and it feels fine to me.

Maybe you guys have very oily water where you live or you've all got pussy forearms? Who knows?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The emulsions i've heard of people using are bullshit, they will just seperate - the tiny amount of fairy liquid does not keeping the oil and water mixed at all. I've made copious amounts of emulsions and they all seperated resulting in sticking pistons again. I've heard of plenty of people haveing the same trouble as me - probably the people who actually cleaned there brake out properly in the first place - not something i'd advise if someone does want to use a water bleed.

Whether mines seperated or not, mines 10 months old now and I still havent had sticky pistons, even if it does seperate it doesnt matter does it? Water is relatively no more compressable than oil.

I tried to run my brake on oil (admittedly it was lhm not royal blood) and the lever took about a second to return, thats with an RB lever so perhaps the bore of the lever inlet is smaller than maggie one, causing a slower reaction. My emulsion works exceptionally well, without the oil in there I get sticky pistons very, very quickly as my slaves are well over 10 years old now. Water bleeding with hard water will cause more problems due to calcification of the seals.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How the f**k can you do something wrong when bleeding? What a stupid question. You put water in - no air, job done. It did work for me, it was nice for a while like i said but it didn't lubricate, theres no point arguing - that IS what happened, and thats why I don't use water. How can anyone expect water to lubricate? The reason most of you guys probably can run water bleeds fine (like i did for a long time) is that there is probably traces of the original oil in there acting as a lubricant.

If you do removie it all, clean the cyclinders, pistons, chamerbs, pipes etc and use only water you WILL run into trouble. Remember the fluid that comes in maggies when you buy it is not the same as Royal blood, royal blood is a much thinner version.

The emulsions i've heard of people using are bullshit, they will just seperate - the tiny amount of fairy liquid does not keeping the oil and water mixed at all. I've made copious amounts of emulsions and they all seperated resulting in sticking pistons again. I've heard of plenty of people haveing the same trouble as me - probably the people who actually cleaned there brake out properly in the first place - not something i'd advise if someone does want to use a water bleed.

If you have removed every single trace of the original oil and used various water bleeds with nothing else mixed in and you've had no sticking pistons then you are very lucky and i am exceptionally pleased for you. If water worked for me i would have stuck with it - but it didn't so royal blood was the best solution and it feels fine to me.

Maybe you guys have very oily water where you live or you've all got pussy forearms? Who knows?

Well don't remove every single trace of oil. Once again, jobs a dream.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Antifreeze have oils to prevent this, and corrosion to..

Maybe the solution is bleed fully with antifreeze or adding % of distilled water.

No current water ot tap please!!

I have a special antifreeze from my old Beta Zero Gara special for a magnesium carter and aluminum pieces. Maybe is the best? No?

I'm still running with royal blood because I'm afraid of water bleed.. :$

Edited by 315r
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...