Today I re-fitted my front brakes with new hydraulic seals and new pads, coating the hydraulic seals in brake fluid and the dust seals with red grease. I appeared to successfully bleed the system- not much joy with the old-fashioned way, but it seemed to work when I reverse bled it with a syringe, pumping back into the lines.

But when I put it all back together, the brake discs were dragging horribly. I took the calipers off and half the pistons were going in-out with a squeeze of the lever as you'd expect, but the others were barely moving. As I'm reasonably confident that the calipers were put back together properly, does this suggest that the system wasn't fully bled and I just need to take a bit longer on that process, or something more tricky?

Cheers,
David

You may have a bubble or two. What i would after a reverse bleed is now do a proper bleed the normal way. Keeping your master cylinder topped up of course.

The pistons with least drag will always move first, unless you stop them moving the others wont move.

There will always be some drag on the brake disk, have you tried riding it yet?

Agreed, reverse bleed then normal bleed

Hi I usually soak all seals in brake fluid.
Build caliper. Reverse bleed. tighten bleed screws
Cable tie the brake lever to the bar (keeps system under pressure and forces air to top)
Go to bed
Next day cut cable tie. Pump lever a few times
Ride away!

i had a nightmare trying to bleed my nc24 brakes after doing the seals in the front calipers spent £20 on a vacumn bleeder from ebay and brakes were bled in a few minutes best tool i have bought this year