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Then it was time to get the bike back on the road.
It seems that this moderate 4" increase in the wheelbase was a good choice. There is still enough traction to lift the front wheel but wheelies are now much easier to control. And in addition now it's quite easy to spin the rear tire if I like so
One of the goals for last winter was to get the front brakes in perfect condition but that was a bit more challenging than I imagined. The brakes that came with the front end have never worked perfectly for me. They were always a bit soft and apparently the system got air in it from somewhere so they kept feeling soft no matter how much I bled them. So I thought get them sorted at once now.
I disassembled the calipers and the master cylinder, carefully cleaned and checked everything and put them back together with new seals. But for my disappointment the result was even worse than before. I spent numerous hours first by trying to bleed the system and then trying to identify the faulty component. I tried different combinations of calipers, brake hoses and so on. Finally I was sure that the master cylinder was the culprit. Since I was totally fed up to play with old parts at that point I bite a bullet and bought a brand new Braking radial master cylinder (ouch$).
With high hopes I installed the new master cylinder, bled the system again and finally realized that the result was pretty much the same than before. Now I had got enough for brakes so I forgot them for few months and returned to the topic when everything else on the bike was ready.
On that new try I disassembled the calipers once more, checked everything twice but didn't find anything. Put everything back together and for some reason the result was now slightly better. Not even close to perfect but good enough for use.
So the brakes were still needing improvement. I spotted six pot calipers from a Busa on sale for reasonable price and bought them. Since they were in nice condition I just cleaned them outside and bolted them on the bike. It was still quite tedious job to get them bled properly but finally the result was good. So it was a long and hard road but now the brakes are finally on the same level with the rest of the bike.
And a pic of the "finished" bike though there isn't much visible changes from last year.
It seems that this moderate 4" increase in the wheelbase was a good choice. There is still enough traction to lift the front wheel but wheelies are now much easier to control. And in addition now it's quite easy to spin the rear tire if I like so
One of the goals for last winter was to get the front brakes in perfect condition but that was a bit more challenging than I imagined. The brakes that came with the front end have never worked perfectly for me. They were always a bit soft and apparently the system got air in it from somewhere so they kept feeling soft no matter how much I bled them. So I thought get them sorted at once now.
I disassembled the calipers and the master cylinder, carefully cleaned and checked everything and put them back together with new seals. But for my disappointment the result was even worse than before. I spent numerous hours first by trying to bleed the system and then trying to identify the faulty component. I tried different combinations of calipers, brake hoses and so on. Finally I was sure that the master cylinder was the culprit. Since I was totally fed up to play with old parts at that point I bite a bullet and bought a brand new Braking radial master cylinder (ouch$).
With high hopes I installed the new master cylinder, bled the system again and finally realized that the result was pretty much the same than before. Now I had got enough for brakes so I forgot them for few months and returned to the topic when everything else on the bike was ready.
On that new try I disassembled the calipers once more, checked everything twice but didn't find anything. Put everything back together and for some reason the result was now slightly better. Not even close to perfect but good enough for use.
So the brakes were still needing improvement. I spotted six pot calipers from a Busa on sale for reasonable price and bought them. Since they were in nice condition I just cleaned them outside and bolted them on the bike. It was still quite tedious job to get them bled properly but finally the result was good. So it was a long and hard road but now the brakes are finally on the same level with the rest of the bike.
And a pic of the "finished" bike though there isn't much visible changes from last year.
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