Replace olives?

If they’ve only been used once, shouldn’t be a problem - as a bike mechanic I’ve swapped hundreds switching over new bikes and never had one leak.

Yeah, they deform to fit but they're under low torque so they can usually do it a bunch of times before there's any issues. It cna be really difficult to get them off though

(if you can lose 15mm or so of hose it can be best to cut the end off, and then destroy the wee bit of hose to extrac tthe olive, and barb if it has one- make sure you cut far enough along to avoid the barb. If it won't come apart, a bit of fire can be the easiest way, just take off any oring that's there, and light it, it'll burn well without any added fuel but isn't hot enough to damage the copper. Horrible fumes obviously. Once it's a bit burned, it'll all come apart lovely.

Thanks - I’ve got new olives and barbs that came with the replacement levers but I don’t want to replace the hose or cut it if poss.  The front is easy enough to swap but the rear goes through the frame and over the motor so I’d have to drop the motor out to replace the hose probably. Not a huge problem but I’d rather do that in the summer….

One other thing, the new levers are different - I had MT-401 levers and the new ones are MT-501. The 501s feel really soft by comparison is that normal? I haven’t ridden them yet as it’s dark and snowing currently but just thought I’d ask if that was by design - servo wave or something perhaps???

I came here for a tasty alternative to the salty snack. 😂

You'll be fine, reused plenty of olives and on one died.

They cost next to nothing and most if not all brake manufacturers suggest you replace them if cutting hose etc.

But what's the worst that could happen ?......

...oh yeah, brake failure.

They cost next to nothing and most if not all brake manufacturers suggest you replace them if cutting hose etc.

Except I’m not cutting the hose and if I replace the olives I also have to replace the hoses as I don’t have any “spare” to trim off. Which in turn also means replacing the olives/barbs at the caliper end…

dyna-ti
Full Member

But what’s the worst that could happen ?……

…oh yeah, brake failure.

Incredibly minor brake failure. You'll get a titchy leak under pressure at worse, and you'll notice it when you test it and go, dang it.

Rather blase attitude.

I reuse them, but if you really haven't got a spare 15mm to play with, they might already be a bit short. No slack in the frame you can pull through?

The 501s feel really soft by comparison is that normal?

I don't know specifically about those levers, but I reckon it's about 50/50 chance you have to do a proper bleed after a disconnection like this. Did you bleed them?

Those levers should feel near enough the same as the old ones, you'll have introduced air into the system during the swap. Good news is that unless you've turned the bike upside down and pumped the lever, that air will be at the lever end, so will come out easily if you just use the bleed bucket (though a full bleed wouldn't be a bad idea if your fluid's getting on a bit). As for the olives, no point replacing them unless they've been mangled.

I didn’t do a proper bleed - just put the funnel on and pumped the lever a few times - didn’t see any bubbles so just topped it up and put the screw back in. I’ll do a proper bleed and see what happens then.

I might be able to find 15mm I suppose - they are whatever length was fitted when new and they aren’t tight when the bars are fully turned one way or the other but they are exactly the right length to slide the lever off the bar end without disconnecting the hose or removing the bar! That said the band on the MT-501 levers splits in two so no need to slide it off the end…