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Other brakes

Posted in Not Glide Related on July 31st, 2011 by Wade

In case you didn’t know I have three motor cycles.  a 1995 Honda Nighthawk 750 (Gill), a 2001 Suzuki GZ250 (Dori), and a 1968 Harley Davidson Electra glide (Marlin).  With all of the brake excitement I decided to redo the front brakes on the other two bikes just to be on the safe side, seeing as how Ive never changed the fluid on ether of them.  While its true that I never changed the fluid on ether bike Dori has had its brake fluid replaced.  You see, the bike got blown over in a wind storm several years ago and the fall knocked loose the banjo on the master cylinder.  The resulting fluid leak is why that bike is now blue rather than factory forest green.  Ever since then the brake has been rather spongy and never really felt right.  So as I said I took this opportunity to redo all the brakes.  Gills brakes were quick and easy and now feel as good as ever.  Dori’s brakes are now much firmer.

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Brake Lights

Posted in The Long Rode on July 29th, 2011 by Wade

Last night after getting back from a CPR class I set to putting the back end back together on Marlin.  I started with honing out the brake cylinder.  That went very well and the bore was as smooth and shiny as freshly honed cylinder.  Being that is been 100ohere I was sweating buckets but was was able to get every thing reassembled.

Reassembled brakes with rebuilt cylinder

I have to say though that the shoe springs on those brakes are crazy stiff.  It was quite a challenge to get them on.  I also bled out the brakes and put the tire back on to the hub.  Every thing seemed to be working just fine but then I noticed that brake fluid kept leaking out.  Well this was obviously no good.  After I found the bras gasket that had fallen down behind the hub mount and got it put back on the banjo the leak stopped.  Excellent.  Now the brakes work and the brake lights works.

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Brakes and seat

Posted in The Long Rode on July 23rd, 2011 by Wade

Felt good to get my hands dirty again.  I started tonight with putting the rear brake master cylinder back on the bike.  This included the right side foot board and the associated hardware.  Once I got the the cylinder back on I put the rear piston back on the brake line.  This was all in an effort to find out how badly corroded the rear piston was.  So I got everything hooked back up and filled the reservoir with DOT 5 as per the MC instructions.  Then I started to pump the brakes.  Of course only one side of the rear piston blew out but that was a start.  This time I actually thought ahead and I put the piston in a milk jug to catch the brake fluid.  So no muss no fuss.  Now here I am with a piston with only one side out and a jammed up opposite side.  I was finely able to get the stuck piston out with the aid of a C-clamp and a hammer handle.  Now for the good news.  The rust that was on the rear piston was superficial external rust and return spring rust.  The bore of the piston is still good, YEAH.  Now all I need is a rebuild kit and all should be good with the rear brakes.  Oh yeah I flushed almost a full reservoirs worth of fluid thought the brake lines and it all came out as clean as when it went in.

After

Before

Next I replaced the ethnically engineered seat front mount bracket. I replaced it with an OEM type Y shaped bracket with the correct shape and dimensions.  This made a huge difference in the ride posture and fit of the seat not to mention made the whole idea of the tilt seat mount possible again.  Now once I started to think about it the engineered seat bracket had the distinct odor of something my grandfather might have done.  But I think I will continue to blame the shop that reassembled the bike for my uncle.

Now for the bad news.  I checked the piston pressure on the rear jug again.  this time I put a squirt of gear oil in the cylinder and low and behold the pressure jumped almost immediately from 90 psi to 110 psi.  the from cylinder remained at 120psi.  So according to all the websites this means there is some serious problems with that rear cylinder.

With that news I’ve come to another financial halt on the bike repair.  I can go ahead and finish up the brake system but the engine is a big problem.  I do of course want the engine to be running at it’s optimum but a ring job is far beyond my capability.

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