[klikboom]

Hopefully someone can help me out...

A while ago my front brake went out, while I was riding, leaking fluid from the hose near the caliper. I replaced the entire hose, new fittings, etc. I've bled the system probably 10 times, and still the lever is soft, and I can squeeze it back to the handlebar.

I thought it might be the plunger so I installed a new one. One of the piston's wasn't moving freely so I replaced one of those as well. Now the pistons squeeze, just not hard enough. I cannot lock the brakes.

I took the whole caliper apart and checked that no holes are clogged. I pushed fluid through the system, while tapping everypiece of the line and I am not getting any air bubbles. What else could be wrong?

 

[GotMyGED]

I don't know if your bike is custom or a production bike, but here is the problem i find with hayes brakes on production bikes. This problem is especially true on the Hayes HFX-9 brakes. When bike manufacturers (Trek, Fisher, etc.) buy the brake kits from Hayes, they only buy kits with one hose length, therefore, small frames are getting the same length of hose as large frames. On custom bikes, there is no way to account for the size of the fork. These cost savings to the manufacturers result in an extremely tight brake hose. Go to a shop and look at a production bike with hayes brakes, if it is a large frame, the hose will most likely, come out of the master cylinder and into a 90 degree straight to the caliper (super tight).

This problem results in major stress on the threads in the caliper where the hose goes in. When the fork rebounds it almost tries to pull the hose fitting out of the caliper. I work at a shop and have seen hayes calipers ruined countless times because the threads could no longer make a seal and contain the brake fluid and keep air out.

Good bike shops will replace the brake hose with a custom cut hose during the initial buildup of the bike and the problem will be avoided. A lot of shops, however, dont have the time or resources to do that.

Not saying this is your problem, but I have diagnosed this many times as the problem with my customers bikes.