|
|
|
|
Following on from the servicing of the front brake caliper it was now the turn of the master cylinder for a overall. I ordered the kit from my increasingly friend independent dealer (with the amout of money I'm spending with him, I'm expecting an invite to their Christmas do!), this would cost £16.50 and would take a couple of days to arrive. With the kit in my possession I proceeded to strip down the lever and master cylinder. I must admit I was surprised by the completeness of the service kit - see below for photo (service kit in polythene bag)
Once again cleanliness was the order of the day. I cleaned everything I could and lubricated all piston and cylinder parts with fresh brake fluid. The trickiest part of this is removing the circlip that holds the piston into the cylinder. Although I have a pair of circlip pliers, the circlip is deep within the reservoir casting and access is restricted by the casting and the piston spigot (the part the brake lever actually depresses to pump the fluid). After reassembly I reattached the whole unit to the handlebars and placed a few cc's of brake fluid in the reservoir, I didn't reconnect the brake hose at this stage because I want to see if the master cylinder was now able to pump fluid. After about a dozen pumps to prime the cylinder with fluid I put my (clean) thumb over the output hole and pulled the lever a few times. After several increasingly anxious tugs on the lever I was finally blessed by a shower of brake fluid spurting out all over me and the bike - which I cleaned up double quick!
After the cleaning up I reconnected the brake hose and bled the brakes. I took the easy option here of connecting a small piece of tubing to the bleed nipple and very slowly sucking it through, clear tubing is preferable for obvious reasons, once I got some fluid appearing in the tube I reverted to the usual method. Now that the front brake is all finished, I'm not certain as to how firm a lever it should be - I'm new to bikes but used to cars, if that makes any sense, I suppose I'll just have to bed the brakes in and see if it firms up.
|
