No More Maple Syrup! Bleeding Brakes & Clutch Fluid on Our Hypermotard 950

Project Hyper, featuring our 2019 Ducati Hypermotard 950, is underway. One major maintenance item that was neglected over the years were the brake and clutch fluid. Since we are a team of one, we opted to do the entire process with a brake bleeder that has one-way check valve built-in. This is the exact one we used: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GGQH744M?... Starting out, we attacked the front brakes first. This process is very straightforward. Insert bleeder tube onto front right caliper’s bleeder valve and loosen the valve a quarter turn. Then, take the cap and gasket off your front brake reservoir. Next, pull-in your front brake lever and watch the fluid go down. Keep going at this process until you almost empty the reservoir. Take your new, fresh brake fluid (DOT 4) and refill the reservoir. Keep pulling in the brake lever and keep topping off the reservoir. Repeat until you see fresh fluid coming through the bleeder tube. Re-tighten the bleeder valve and now transfer the tube to the front left caliper’s bleeder valve. Loosen a quarter turn and repeat the same process. Once you see fresh fluid coming through, retighten the caliper’s bleeder valve. Now, there should also be a bleeder valve on the master cylinder by your reservoir. Move the tube to it, loosen and repeat the process a third time. Once done, your brakes are now down. Make sure the reservoir is topped off and pull in your lever to make sure you have brake pressure. The clutch fluid is pretty simple, too. Instead of bleeder valves on calipers, you have a bleeder valve on the slave cylinder, located on the left side of the engine. Repeat the same process, mentioned above. The clutch lever and reservoir should also have a bleeder valve on the master cylinder. Now it’s time to knock out the rear brake, Ducati doesn’t require the rear wheel be removed, but with a single-sided rear swingarm, gaining access is too easy to not take it off. Now, the manual states that you must remove the rear caliper and move it to where it’s above where the rear brake reservoir is. This helps reduce any potential air bubbles from not escaping. To get the caliper above the swingarm, I removed the rear brake line guide underneath the swingarm, removed the two bolts holding it on and then zip-tied it to the exhaust bracket below the subframe. Find something the same width as the brake rotor to prevent the caliper from closing in when you pump the rear brake lever. I used a pack of cut-off wheels (use what you can!). Then, repeat the same process as before, except you do not have a master cylinder bleeder valve now.. just the single caliper bleeder valve. When done, put everything back where it was, give your rear brake lever a push to make sure you have pressure, and voila.. you’re done!