Bleeding ABS brakes

[Addzz]

As part of the recommissioning of my dl (ak7) I’m going to rebuild all the callipers and also fit braided hoses. Are there any different procedures for bleeding the abs system to a normal non abs system?

[Gert]

The same method is used for both the ABS and non-ABS brake systems, except that the ABS pump has to be cycled by forcing the ABS pump to work after the fluid is replaced. This will circulate fresh brake fluid to replace the old fluid in the pump. If the fluid is dirty after the ABS activation, it may be necessary to bleed for a 2nd time.

There are a couple of methods to use when bleeding brakes. Gravity feed from the master cylinder and by force feed with good sized syringe connected to the caliper bleeder.
Since you are replacing the brake hose, I would recommend the more effective method which is reverse bleeding, where you inject brake fluid from a low point (ie the caliper bleed nipple) with a large capacity syringe that drives the old fluid and any trapped air up and out the master cylinder reservoir.

The front brake bleed is in two steps. The 1st side the fluid should just start coming into the master cylinder. The master cylinder is filled to the correct level from the second front caliper. The rear brake master cylinder is filled from the caliper end under syringe pressure as a single step. Remember to close off the caliper bleeder before letting off the pressure from the syringe.

To cycle the ABS pump will require a test ride and then apply the brakes hard enough to activate the ABS pump.  It is recommended that for the rear brake activation, you find a bit of dirt or gravel to activate the abs at very low, safe speed.  The front ABS can, under controlled conditions, be safely activated on any hard surface like in an empty Car park.

[Addzz]

 Thanks for the reply Gert, extremely helpful. Would a vacuum bleeder like Mityvac do the job? I have one of those from previous brake hose swaps/caliper rebuilds

[grumps]

Did I pick up somewhere that with an OBD reader you could operate the ABS system to flush the unit? Might be thinking of something else?

[Addzz]

I’ve certainly had to activate th abs pump on my van to bleed the brakes through

[Gert]

In reply to the Mityvac query, yes it would work.

Another handy option that many have had success with is installing a speed bleeder, which replaces the standard caliper bleeder nipple.

https://www.v-strom.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=37975.0 shares helpful info should the brake bleeder nipple start weeping. A link to the speed bleeder website is included in the attached / linked thread.

[purplebikeunicorn]

I believe you'd need the proper Suzuki system to maybe activate the ABS pump, if that's even possible. I asked a couple of eBay sellers selling "Suzuki" motorcycle compatible diag tools and they all said they couldn't do ABS diags.

There is a big discussion on this on the Stromtrooper forum, along with diagrams of how the system operates. There is also a clever chap on there who made an ABS bleeding system out of relay internals and an arduino, however, if you have no air in the system in the first place (by bleeding the brakes fully the old fashioned way), then you only need to operate the ABS a few times to exchange that small amount of fluid internal to the ABS unit as there should be no air there.

[porter]

Changed the master cylinder a few times now on my 2014 1000 and never done anything different than a non abs bike.
  The little pump thing helps get the fluid through more quickly then I switch to the one way bleeder for the last few pumps. Once I activated the abs but not the other times, worked just the same.