Bikely fluids

Behind slotted screws (which I believe the civilized world banished decades ago) Phillips are the worst thing known to man. The best thing they will ever do is center the drill bit that is to destroy them. And that's what this one did.

With that out of the way this bike needs brakes. Which starts with a bottle of this stuff.

And some bolts

Bled, braking, and looking good!

Cap it off with some stainless cap bolts, and call it a night:

Not a ground breaking event or anything, but an important step.

Sunday worship

The day started out with a long overdue brake job.

New shoes had it grabbing a lot sooner than before and a lot better, should have done this a long time ago.

This was the first chance I had to test out the new brace and I must say it made a good bit of difference. As already stated it overall just made the ride a lot more predictable and pleasant.

On the way up to Denton:

 

Classic Denton haunt:

Quite a few people showed up for the original gathering, but by the time I had gotten my bike back buttoned up and ready to go most were ready to head home. It was just the three of us heading up to Denton (and two more in the truck)

Loudbike, Eddies 750, and Matts Harley:

rings and teeth

Working on the details

Attached and filled the front brakes... much safer to roll up and down ramps now (I dropped it the first time I brought it down, fortunately it didn't have any bodywork or anything at the time)

This though, was the most exciting thing to happen this week. I finally broke down and ponied up for a pair of serious stands for it. Happy Fathers Day to me!

 Brake side: not bad. Clutch side: toast. This needed to be done.

Picked the new ones up from a store on Ebay called Lucky Bike and I am quite impressed with the quality. The finish is killer.

Picked up an RK sprocket set from Motorcycle Superstore. I'm sure the quality's there, but the finish (which closely resembles the stock finish) on the rear is pretty nasty cheap looking chrome. I love the color of the front sprocket and wish they would have done the rear the same way. 

 

Stock sizes

 

Pretty

Lubing the threads so that I can get an accurate torque reading... As someone who likes to put theadlock on everything, this has always terrified me, but it's what the service manual says to do so I thought I'd give it a shot. By the way, you don't have to use such fancy oil, this was just one that has been sitting on my shelf since a friend gave it to me years ago.

As you may note, the pinch bolt needs to be tightened down quite a lot. I'll be taking care of that when I do the chain.

...and my next little project for tomorrow night:

Wow, hard to believe that's all that I got done this last week. My wife and daughter are down in Houston for these two weeks so I moved the VFR into the dining room where I could watch some of the hundreds of Top Gear episodes that my DVR recorded for me over the Memorial Day marathon while I worked on the bike... turns out I can't multi-task. So now the bike's back in the garage, maybe I'll have better luck tomorrow.

Breaking brakes

And this is what it looks like in real life:

Here's the biggest concern:

I don't know how one can manage to trash sliders like this but I can imagine it leading to a sticky brake in the future as it shreds the boots. All of them seemed too tight or dirty, this was a good project I think I'll be able to make some solid improvements here.

These were tricky to get out, I had to use a rubber tipped air gun in the fluid inlet to blow them out, the trick is getting them to come out at the same time so that when the first one pops out the second is almost out so you can work it the last bit. Really you could just take one out at a time and clean them individually... but then I wouldn't have been able to get this nice picture. It was all really a bit unnecessary by the end of it because by the time I got them out I had drenched the whole caliper in WD40 and rubbed all over them pretty thoroughly so when they came out they were already clean.

Ready to go back in:

Some of the parts will get a little clean up and be ready for re assembly. Such as:

I don't like the rough edges on parts like this, they catch dirt like mad and look sloppy.

Better