Installation of Stainless Steel Brake and Clutch Lines
- This is the way I did it, but it may not be the O-Fish-All method. They not only look good but really improve brake feel and make shifts nice and crisp. When I say left side, I mean the sitting on your saddle facing forward left side. Not to be confused with the looking into the headlight left side.
- Recommendation #1 - get a Mity-Vac or something similar. Although I never tried the new one way bleeder valves, IMO, having the Mity-Vac pulling a vacuum on the line beats pumping levers. (You can't use the the speed bleeder type brake bleeders when starting from an empty brake line ..murph)
- Recommendation #2 - get some good brake fluid and flush everything. I use Valvoline SynPower brake fluid. It's DOT 3 and DOT 4 compatible but has a wet boiling point of 343 degrees and dry of 502 which is real good. Silkolene makes some good stuff too. DOT 5.1 is better yet but costs more and is harder to find.
- Recommendation #3 - don't tighten anything until your sure its right. Those banjo washers are one crush only and if you run out of the extra's that Murph sends you, my Big K dealer sells them for $2.79 a piece and you always need two or more (they are about 70 cents at NAPA).
Front Brake Lines - two line kit. (Three line kit works about the same, just make sure you have the line length and banjoes like the stock and don't remove the line tee.) Put an old towel over the tank and another over the fender (brake fluid is nasty). I took the tank off but you don't have to.
Take the cover off the reservoir and place the parts somewhere clean.
Attach the Mity-Vac to the caliper and pump all the fluid out. Do it to both calipers. Order doesn't matter.
Remove bolts holding old line tee. Keep the wire keeper, if you have one, you can use it to route the new lines. Same with keepers above they calipers. They can be used to keep the SS lines in place.
Take the old lines off. Start at the caliper and work up to bars. They will drip a little so use a rag to catch the stuff. This is a great time to pull the calipers to clean them or change the pads, but that's another story.
Now comes the fun stuff. Now play with running the lines up to the reservoir. Try to avoid making hard bends with the line. If you are doing it right there will only be gentle curves. Use the longer line for the left caliper and make sure both straight banjos are at the bottom. There will be two shorter bolts for a single banjo and a longer for two banjoes. The double goes on the reservoir.
Remember, every banjo requires two crush washers except in the longer double bolt which has one between two banjos. Attach the banjo at the bottom of the caliper with the line running toward the rear of the bike. Don't tighten it yet, but you can take it full finger tight. When you think you have the right route put a crush washer on the double bolt, then the straight banjo from the right side. Add another crush washer and then the bent banjo. You want the bent banjo to bend toward the rear of the bike which is also to the threaded end of the bolt. Add one more crush washer and start the threads into the reservoir. You can tighten the banjoes to torque specs. Galfer says no more than 10 to 12 ft-lbs, which is a less than the service manual. I went with 11 ft-lbs.
Fill and bleed the lines. How you do this is up to you. I fill the reservoir then use the Mity-Vac to pull fluid through. The lever will still be mushy so I pump the lever until it hardens up some then add fluid, then pull fluid with the Mity-Vac. I repeat until I get a hard lever and no air coming out. Remember you need to bleed through both calipers.
Rear Brake Line - This is a no brainer. One line, two banjoes and only one place to go. Drain brake fluid, put on new line, torque banjos, bleed like fronts only quicker and easier.
Clutch Line - This is similar to the rear brake except some of the components are harder to get to. You don't have a "caliper" on the clutch cable. The cable runs as rubber line from the clutch reservoir to metal line on the left side of the steering head. That metal tube runs in the upper frame under the tank and behind the air cleaner box.
Just near the bottom of the air cleaner box more rubber hose is attached and it runs below the engine to the clutch. I recommend removing the tank and left middle fairing to do this job. The fluid bleeder nut is just above the shifter. Take the reservoir cap and parts off and put in a clean place. Drain the reservoir. Take off the banjos.
Remove the old line. I brute forced this step by cutting the old line where it seemed appropriate and removed it piece by piece. I used the bent banjo for the bottom attachment of the new line with the bend pointing up and to the rear.
The new line is shorter than the old and will not follow the old route. I went up and under the oil filler cap then between the frame and the air filter box. I followed the curve of the frame and the air filter box and went just under the coils. This routing is not engineering, it is more cut and try (please don't cut).
Keep in mind that some day someone will want to take that valve cover off. Use plastic ties liberally. Torque the banjos. Did I say torque the banjos? My torque wrench would not fit in to torque the bottom one. I just winged it. Recommend going light, if it leaks, tighten a "little" more.
As far as pad's go, I got Galfer greens all around and like them a lot. There will be some fluid in the caliper so be careful where you work on it. The smaller pad comes out first. Press down on it and it should lean toward the other pad. You can then slide and pop it out.
The longer pad has a hole at both ends that go around pins. This takes a little playing with. I pushed down on the slider with the caliper on my bench. One side of the pad was moved toward the bench and the other was pulled off the pin. Once you get the hole partially off the pin, you may have to put a little force behind it, then rotate the pad.
By rotating the pad, I mean use the hole that is down on the pin as a pivot point and push the pad near the hole that is coming off the pin in the direction to move it away from the caliper. It's a lot harder to explain than to do it. I've been told it is best to use soapy water and a tooth brush to clean off the caliper. I used a spray, no residue brake cleaner and a toothbrush. If you use the brake cleaner, keep it off the rubber boots, it will eat them up over time.
You can pop the piston using an air pump for blowing up back yard swimming pools. I left mine in because I really didn't have that many miles on them. Make sure that you get caliper grease (you can buy it in small packets like soy sauce in a Chinese restaurant). Don't try to pop the rubber boots by pulling out the slide. If you twist and pull easy on the boot the pop off and slide comes right out.
This may sound dumb, but when you put in the pads, the smaller one that fits next to the piston can be installed backwards. You know Murphy's Law, make sure the two pad surfaces face each other before putting them back on the rotor. Apply grease to the slide liberally but not where it can make its way to the pads. The grease SHOULD stay inside the boots.
On the rear caliper, you may have to take off the muffler to get a good torque on the bottom bolt. That depends on your socket and wrench size. Mine was too long to fit.
Hope this is of assistance.
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