Avid Elixir Lever

Airienteer

On a recent ride I turned the bike upside down to do some trailside maintenance. When I resumed riding I found the lever on my front Avid Elixir 5 pulled much nearer the bar. No amount of pumping solved it and the brake has been out of action for a few days and not returned to normal. Before turning the bike upside down it was operating perfectly. Any ideas for what went wrong and a fix? Thanks

nicklouse

air in the reservoir has now entered the hose.

try sucking the fluid out with the one syringe on the lever end (just like a bleed but only at one end) yes you need some fluid in the syringe to replace any air.

Airienteer

Thanks a lot nicklouse, I'll try that tomorrow.

-liam-

I've done this on my juicy 5's...

Air bubble in the reservoir has found its way into the line while the bike was upside down. Bleed time.

Skonk

Air in the system perhaps.

Not sure exactly how the internals are setup on them (dispite me having them on all my bikes lol) but I know from experience that on some brakes it's posible to have air in the system which doesn't effect the operation of the brakes due to where the air is situated; but if the air moves into the part of the brake system which is presurised when you pull the lever then it will feel soft.

So I suspect that when you turned the bike over, the air has then had chance to float about into a bad spot.

In which case a bleed is needed (can do it yourself using a kit which costs about 30 quid) or take it to a bike shop.

I could be totally wrong though and I'm sure Nick or someone will offer up some suggestions

James.

EDIT:

Lol you both beat me too it while i was typing all that out