Brake System Flush | 48K Mile Service - Part 3

[Olgry1]

Is there a separate bleed fitting on the abs unit? I just bled my brakes and the lever is quite soft. Used the harbor freight vacuum kit. It works well, but no air came out. Haven't got a ride in yet to confirm that the bike will stop properly. Lever has been soft since new. My new Himalayan has a great lever feel. Very firm. But the front brake is kind of a joke. Four fingers if you really need to stop.

I have had luck in the past bleeding the master cylinder to firm up the brake lever.

To do so you remove the lid on the master cylinder. Then very SLOWLY you squeeze the ball on the very end of the brake lever with your right pointer finger. If you squeeze the brake lever too quickly brake fluid will shoot out of the reservoir and get on your painted surfaces.

After you have squeezed the brake lever almost as firmly as you can you want to slide your pointer finger off the ball at the end of the lever. The lever will quickly spring back to it normal position and in that process will send a "shock" through the brake line. You then repeat this process a few times over the next minute or so. Sometimes you will see bubbles immediately as you slowly begin to repeat the process. You then wait 5 or so minutes to let air bubbles move through the system and up to the master cylinder.
After the five minutes or so you then once again slowly squeeze the brake lever and look for bubbles flow out of the brake line into the master cylinder.

You continue the process until the air bubles get so small you can hardly see them flow out of the brake line into the master cylinder.