Brakes and seat
Posted in The Long Rode on July 23rd, 2011 by WadeFelt 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.