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Sorry, bit long winded:
The little lady had an OTB yesterday, she's okay (other than the massive bruise on her leg) but the front brake lever took a bit of a whack. She lost most/all braking on the limp back to the car, the lever was coming back to the bar and it was obvious that it had lost some fluid. Not that obvious where from though, given the amount of mud and water about.
On looking at it this evening, the lever had spun round the bar a bit and the hose connector was pressing really hard against the shifter. I think this was enough for a bit of fluid to seep out. The connector is tight though, and not damaged.
So, after whipping the wheel and pads out and putting a spacer block in the caliper, I levelled up the lever, took of the reservoir cap and the level was obviously low. I topped it up and cycled the lever a few times, tapping the hose along it's length. A couple of tiny bubbles came out, nothing more.
With the cap back on and the spacer still in place, the lever feels fine; tiny bit of movement (which is to be expected as the spacer is hardly allowing the pistons to move) but really firm. However, with the pads and wheel back in, the lever is coming to near the bar; much more travel than I'd expect.
I can't see a leak anywhere. For now I've left it with the lever ziptied tight to the bar and clean bits of rag around any potential leak point, thinking that if there is a leak it'll manifest itself overnight.
Any other ideas? There older style SLX's by the way.
Sounds like air is in the hose - I'd do a full bleed, bottom up to sort it out.
go for a full bleed. however, keep the pads out over night with a pedal strap clamping the brake lever down, yellow block in place, to ensure that theres no leaks along the hose connection points.
If the pads are not completely new you will need to pump them back to the rotor (because you should have reset the pistons before doing any bleed).
This can take a good few squeezes. Also check that they come back to the rotor evenly (if there is a sticky piston it might not move back enough).
One other thing with the old SLXs (I have them on my bike), when doing the 'open nipple, squeeze lever, close nipple, release lever' sequence, I find that I have to pull the lever out the last few mm after release to get it to really pull fluid through.
On the bright side, though, these brakes are quite easy to bleed compared to some Hayes brakes I used to have. I never managed to do those, and got DOT fluid everywhere.
Good luck.