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Currently on the continent. Tentatively purchased a 2019 Trek Roscoe 8 privately, maxing out my budget. The levers are 'the wrong way round'. The local bike shop want too much money to swap the hoses over (around £150), insisting that new hoses are required and that the system will need to be set-up afresh.
YouTube tutorials suggest literally (carefully) unfastening the hoses and swapping them over, suggesting a ten minute job. Is this too difficult a task to do for a non-mechanically minded luddite? If it goes wrong, will I have no choice but to cough up or can I DIY it?
Cheers!
I've done hundreds and only had an issue twice. Slacken both hoses, pull out carefully (try to minimise fluid loss) and quickly re-insert.
Some folk suggest removing the wheels and pumping out the pistons a smidge first. Shouldn't do any harm.
It's not a hard job as such, but using the same olives and barbs and removing and refitting MAY not work.... it may need new ones. You could do it with the fitted bits, give it a quick bleed and be all good...
£150 sounds VERY excessive... I'd be thinking maybe £30-50 tops.
Bike shops in lift access resorts switch hoses daily as part of the hire. £150 is ridiculous. Find a different shop.
It’s a pretty simple job, What brakes are they?
Pretty easy. Much easier if you an extra pair of hands to hold one hose while you fit the other. Keep it upright and don't move it too much and you should get away without any fluid loss and the need for bleeding. No need for new hoses at all, wouldn't be rushing back to that bike shop
If it goes to plan, no it's simple.
Prepare well. Levers vertical to minimise leaks, somewhere to tie the hose you aren't working on to keep that vertical too, basically if you can do it without losing any fluid you are fine, I've swapped calipers this way, can't see levers being different, pretty much as youtube suggests
Worst case scenario is having to do a full bleed of both if you make a mess of the above, difficulty depends on what brakes you have.
£150 seems silly money, unless for reason the hoses don't swap straight over and you need new hoses (different brakes? Some weird routing thing meaning it's not long enough, although that should only be one?) Full bleed at an LBS I'd guess £20-30, maybe an hour's labour to make a good job of it.
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Not flip-flop levers then?
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{EDIT] Basically what they said up there, just quicker than I did
Where in the country are you? Look like shimano on that? Anywhere near Sheffield and I’ll do it for the price of a couple of pints
The local bike shop want too much money to swap the hoses over (around £150)
Blimey. They clearly don't want the job!
I did a post a few years back with pics. It really is a simple job - check Youtube, there's bound to be an instruction video. I've yet to find a maintenance job that doesn't have some "and then you wanna undo this..." video on there 🙂
One of the easier jobs, even bleeding is simple afterwards as any air is high and at the lever end, no faffing, just loosen, swap and a quick bleed. If the worst does happen then new barbs and olives are pennies.
Shimano brakes?
Swap hoses.. from left to right carefully as above.
Possibly no bleed required, might need a master cylinder (lever) bleed. Worst case scenario a full bleed if it's internal and you need to swap the rear hose exit side.
New hoses... Not likely
You can do this at home with care and a spanner.
As above, for shimano you can literally just undo the compression fitting, swap hoses and that's it. Easiest way is to back off the nuts with a spanner until it's only just held on, then do them both at the same time (and quickly) by hand.
Once swapped, wind out all the adjusters so the lever is as far from the bar as possible, pump it a few times to dislodge any big air bubbles, get a zip tie and pull the lever to the bar pretty damn tight, this compresses any remaining bubbles and helps them rise to the top of the reservoir where they're basically harmless. Leave it like this overnight to allow the air to rise.
If that doesn't result in working brakes then yes you may need to bleed them. If they leak from the fittings, then you may need new olives, barbs etc, but to remove ~0.5-1" of hose you won't need to replace the whole hose unless they're already far too tight.
Plan B: Just order the correct Deore brakes from Merlin or wherever is cheapest, you can probably find some for £40-£70 and swap/fix the other brakes at your leisure when you get back home.
I've managed to do this several times with shimano brakes without having to bleed. Remove pads and pump lever a couple of times then, making sure the lever isn't pointing downwards, disconnect and swap the hoses (never needed new olive or barb unless the hose is shortened), keeping the end facing upwards as far as possible. Once reconnected use a tyre lever to push pistons back before refitting pads and should be good to go
it's not a difficult job but do get proper (but not necessarily expensive) hose cutters to get a nice neat cut.
No cutters required.
Done it myself on 4 shimanos and 3 srams, had to bleed the first shimano system I did, since then its been faultless. I take levers off and point the soon to be open end up, unscrew and point hose up. Assistant holds them, do the same with other pair, swap hose over and BYU.
Just remembered - only slight issue I've had doing this is the hoses wouldn't pull out of the lever. You're trying to do it gently so as not to spill any fluid and you pull... and they won't come out... All you do is give the lever a gennnntle squeeze and it releases the hose. (release the lever as soon as you feel the hose move)