I personally never use anything other than manual bleeding on motorcycles. And so far, can do that all by myself, even on the BMWs with servo brakes and 11 valves to bleed . There's so little fluid in the reservoirs than with vacuum, you start gulping air with fluid level in the middle ('tornado' effect). And I've never used pressure bleeders, and never will. I know they don't fit on motorcycles, but on cars, above the master cylinder, the system is not designed to be pressurized. I use vacuum on all my cars, and never an issue either... but I leave plenty of fluid to avoid sucking air. With ABS brakes, sucking air almost always requires a trip to the dealer to cycle the pump(s) while bleeding. Bleeding manually correctly, you just can't screw up anything, as you're pushing all fluid out of the lines. Just remember to close the valve right before bottoming out the master cylinders, and you'll be successful every time. And in case you introduced air into the system, remember Kawasaki was nice enough to give us bleeders for the master cylinders; use them . Just bought the bike, so I'm a year away to do this, but can't imagine being any different than my other bikes. Good luck.
I personally never use anything other than manual bleeding on motorcycles. And so far, can do that all by myself, even on the BMWs with servo brakes and 11 valves to bleed . There's so little fluid in the reservoirs than with vacuum, you start gulping air with fluid level in the middle ('tornado' effect). And I've never used pressure bleeders, and never will. I know they don't fit on motorcycles, but on cars, above the master cylinder, the system is not designed to be pressurized. I use vacuum on all my cars, and never an issue either... but I leave plenty of fluid to avoid sucking air. With ABS brakes, sucking air almost always requires a trip to the dealer to cycle the pump(s) while bleeding. Bleeding manually correctly, you just can't screw up anything, as you're pushing all fluid out of the lines. Just remember to close the valve right before bottoming out the master cylinders, and you'll be successful every time. And in case you introduced air into the system, remember Kawasaki was nice enough to give us bleeders for the master cylinders; use them . Just bought the bike, so I'm a year away to do this, but can't imagine being any different than my other bikes. Good luck.
That all sounds well and good and the first time that I bled the clutch I had ZERO problems and the job was done in 10 mins using the Motion Pro valve. I followed the exact same procedure the next time and it went sideways, as you can read above. Somehow air got into the system obviously but I don't know how. The next time I'll have to keep a VERY close eye on what I'm doing cuz I don't want to go through that crap again.
Successfully bled my brake fluid using a mityvac, even though I did empty the reservoir once and had to do the top bleed as well.
However after reading this thread, I'm actually thinking of just removing the dirty fluid from the clutch top reservoir and replacing it without a full system bleed. Perhaps empty it half way, add more fluid then just remove as much dirt and old fluid as I can without letting it get too low.
So, it's time for all you doom 'n' gloom types (and just cautious thinkers) to come out and tell me what I have to fear long term with that approach.
I am not following you there Marty. ??
Emptying the reservoir, then filling it up with fresh fluid and drawing the new fluid down through the system is the way I have always done hydraulic system flushes. ?? How else had you been doing it (Easy Boys!)?
Brian
I'm pretty sure that what Marty means is that he's not going to bleed the clutch system but instead he's going to remove half of the old fluid from the reservoir and add new fluid. Then ride the bike that way for a bit and then do it again...close..sort of..but repeat removal after fill then refill and close.
Emptying the reservoir, then filling it up with fresh fluid and drawing the new fluid down through the system is the way I have always done hydraulic system flushes. ??Agreed, that's the best way. At least until you encounter problems with the clutch and then wish you hadn't done anything.
Successfully bled my brake fluid using a mityvac, even though I did empty the reservoir once and had to do the top bleed as well.
However after reading this thread, I'm actually thinking of just removing the dirty fluid from the clutch top reservoir and replacing it without a full system bleed. Perhaps empty it half way, add more fluid then just remove as much dirt and old fluid as I can without letting it get too low.
So, it's time for all you doom 'n' gloom types (and just cautious thinkers) to come out and tell me what I have to fear long term with that approach.
I just use a turkey baster to get 3/4s out, then remove as much of the black flecks as I can, add clean fluid, commence bleeding. Knock on wood, that usually works fine for me. Clutch acted a bit wonky Saturday morning but it got better (normal action) during the day....thank goodness.
close..sort of..but repeat removal after fill then refill and close.
Agreed, that's the best way. At least until you encounter problems with the clutch and then wish you hadn't done anything.
It seems that the brake fluid stays clean but simply ages and to some extent and absorbs moisture which can boil under heat and pressure (so I've read) so a full system bleed is desirable to avoid that.
The clutch hydraulic fluid on the other hand, seems to transport dirt from the bottom up into the reservoir (at least that's what the video says), so I was just going to remove the dirty fluid, replace it before getting to the bottom of the reservoir and remove more until it looked reasonably clean. Then just take my chances with the remainder of the fluid until such time as the clutch drags or quits releasing altogether, hoping that it would give me some warning, but if not, thinking that almost any auto shop (assuming a bike shop wasn't close by) could (for a price $, of course) help me out if I got stranded with out a clutch on the road with a fluid bleed. In other words, the clutch bleed seems to be more problematic than a brake bleed, yet much less catastrophic if it fails to function. Thought I'd also give all the naysayers a chance to unload on my silly thinking.
Probably will totally bleed it when ever I think I'll have a month or more of down time in case I have problems.
(to save all the "easy boys" I just replaced "suck out" with "remove".)
"I will send you and envelope full of compressed air"
Wouldn't nitrogen be better?