I’m about to embark on a new build with Shimano road hydraulic brakes for the first time.
What are the essential tools that I should buy, and/or should I just stick with the dedicated Shimano versions?
I’m thinking I need a bleed kit, and cable cutter/barb installer thingy, mineral oil, spare olives/barbs. Is that it?
I’ve assumed I may need to cut the hose, but would welcome any experience as to whether it’s normally necessary. I guess “it depends” but I’m pretty average size 6ft/180cm and one a 56cm frame.
I’ve found the Park Tool Mineral Hydraulic Brake Kit, now in 1.2 form, to be pretty good for the task, and more so than the Shimano version. For cutting hoses, the Hydraulic Barb Tool is also quite good, as it’s all metal and less prone to failure.
Depending on frame/fork design, you might find that shortening the hoses would be necessary, especially if internally routed from lever to caliper, as there’s less space to accommodate excess hose lengths.
That said, if you do plan to travel with the bike, where it’s usually par the course to remove the handlebar (I’d usually remove the bar along with the stem. so I don’t lose my bar to stem setup), you’d want some additional length in the hoses to facilitate removal and packing. I’d also use spare steerer tube spacers to take up the space vacated by the stem while the bike is packed.
Back on topic, I’d also get some olives and barb inserts, since Shimano has the inserts already installed at the end of hoses - so if you do shorten the hoses, you’ll need new inserts. And Shimano also “stores” the lever end olives in the caliper itself, in case you weren’t aware.
Shimano branded mineral oil, olives, and barbs are to me a necessity. The bleed kit less so, but the updated Shimano professional bleed kit with newer metal caliper compression fittings is very pleasant to use. The hose cutter and barb press is a nice to have, any brand will do. I use one from AliExpress.
I’m assuming you either want to build up the bike or at least want to be able to bleed the brakes yourself.
Get a big 1 l canister of Shimano mineral oil.
Get a “pro” bleed kit from a reputable source. Yes, you’re paying a lot, but the nicer ones are a lot easier to use. The cheap ones often have plastic parts that you e. g. screw metal into where as the “pro” versions typically have metal-to-metal contacts and nicer syringes.
If you are building up the bike, you may want to invest into a cable routing kit (e. g. by ParkTool). If someone builds up the bike for you, no need to worry. Unless your hydraulic hoses get contaminated or damaged, you never need to replace them. (I got a new left shifter, and my LBS left my old hydraulic hoses in place.)
A proper cable cutter should work well for hydraulic hoses. It is important that the hydraulic hose isn’t squeezed, because then the cut will not be flush with the barb.
Watch the ParkTool videos for bleeding brakes. There are other videos, but the procedures in the ParkTool videos in my experience work best. They may include some extra steps, but it is these steps that make a huge difference in the end result.
In addition to what other have said above, you’ll need some way to accurately tighten the 8mm hose nut clamp to the 5-6nm torque.
A crows foot wremch can be useful at the lever is space is limited, especially with bars that have internal routing.
Piston bleed blocks that allow you to progress one side, to massage the piston, are also useful. I do that massage on all new brakes now as well as old ones to ensure even piston advancement as much as possible.
I had and still have (some of) the same questions. In my opinion this would be one hell of a #threaded series, as there are so many pitfalls I guess. Also I have the feeling that you get some stuff to work on this and after buying you stumble across sth. that also would be good, such as a barb-press, leaving me questioning if I understood the assignment properly to work on hydraulic brakes myself…
Of course Dave Rome’s written an article on recommended tools (not linking there, but the title is “Cool Tool Tuesday #8: The best tools for installing hydraulic disc brakes”), although it’s at the Old Place and from 2022 so perhaps there are better options now. I’ve successfully maintained my brakes after reluctantly ignoring them for years using the tools in his article:
brake hose cutter: SRAM Pro
needle driver / hose barb install: ZTTO
compression nut spanner: Park Tool MWF-3
bleed kit: I unfortunately have both Shimano and SRAM brakes to maintain, so I opted to save some money by getting EZ-MTB kits
Great advice everyone, thanks for your input. Lots of good options there.
I don’t have to build the bike, but I do want to. Having maintained all my own bikes for years, I seem to have skipped a few generations of technology and now find myself with hydraulics, thru axles, tubeless and Di2 all for the first time. What fun!
I had thought there might be a #threaded around for this, but I’ll check out the next best thing as recommended.
I’m not sure I follow that last bit about the lever end olives. The new group I bought (Ultegra 8170) comes with the hoses pre installed in the caliper and a insert in the other end of the hose, as you say. I don’t follow the bit about the other olive being “stored”.
If the levers are brand new then they will have an olive preinstalled in the hose port. You can see it if you look closely enough. Then all you have to do is insert the hose w/ preinstalled barb and you’re set.
If you have to shorten the hose, then you need to press in a new barb
The R8170 groupset you have would already have the hoses installed at the caliper end, as you’ve seen. You’ll need to route this to the brake lever, which may require you to shorten the hoses depending on the size of your frame/fork. If so, you’d require additional barb inserts for the hose after you’ve shortened the hose. You’ll then need to slide the flange flare nut (kept in place by the white clip thing in this image) over the hose, followed by the brass olive, which is actually housed in the brake lever. To get at the olive, you’ll need to remove the white clip, pull out the white plug and it should be in there.
To tighten the flange flare nut, I’ve found the Park Tool MWF-3 that @Alan_L mentioned to be the best suited for the task, given that the spanner contacts the nut on 5 sides, as opposed to the 2 of "normal” spanners.
