reviving an old beast

[GARTHXS]

all good ideas

I applied copius amonts of pb on them and I am going to let them sit overnight, and a good. Wakkin is in order like they say when in doubt get a bigger hammer , if that doesn't work I think I have an extra set of brakes from my parts bike !

[GARTHXS]

parts

So it looks like I am stalled on my project till tomorrow and later , my gel battery will be here today but I'm going to have to wait till fri for a set of carbs. And its raining again and me with no garage , it looks like I won't be getting anything done on the bike today. At least I got some stuff started yesterday , here's the update. Brakes off an dis assembled. Fairing removed for easier access, newer carb boots installed and all fluids changed , oil cooler installed that's it for now

[GARTHXS]

some success

So I pb blasted the brake pistons and let them sit for about 18 hours and in the meantime got a 42oz deadblow hammer and a chunk of scrap 2inch dowel from the home despot, and this morning apllied liberal blunt trauma to the pistons, then took the calipers and put em between my feet and grabbed em with my channel locks and got those sobs out!!! The pistons were in good shape so I cleaned out the cylinders and the o rings man they collect a lot of crap underneath I can see why they didn't work, only problem was I forgot to get the back brake soaking too , so I guess ill do repeat tomorrow haha. So just waiting for parts as always!

[GARTHXS]

rear brakes

Do I have to pull the rear tire to get the pads out?

[DGXSER]

I think the special and std are the same in at the rear brakes. On my special, I had to pull the bolt holding the caliper on and also the small screw in the back of the caliper holding the pad in place. On mine it is a philips screw. it was kind of a pain to get out IIRC. You have to go through the wheel behind the caliper to it.

Pull the caliper and the pads come right out.

[thewiz]

Now that's mighty clever, Bikerphil ..

Take a valve stem from a car tire and whittle down the rubber on the base end until you are able to thread it into the banjo bolt hole on the caliper. Take a bicycle pump and slowly pump air into the valve (bleeder screw closed of course) and the piston will come right out. It's nice because you can slowly pump air in versus compressed air, and your hands and face can be away from the piston. Works well with not too much brake fluid flyin' out. The rubber valve stem makes a nice air tight seal.

and very resourceful !!

[GARTHXS]

reassembly

So I'm just wondering how to get brake fluid into my system any answers? Should I prefill calipers and then the lines , how do you bench bleed

[GARTHXS]

oh yeah

Forgot to mention I installed the battery and turned the key on and cleaned the fuses a little bit and she turned over nicely , I can't wait for carbs!

[DGXSER]

On mine, I had to resort to the Mity Vac to get the back MC to bleed.

Fronts worked fine as gravity is with you on that end. I just kept adding fluid to master, and bleeding out one wheel cylinder at a time, then the other, and back and forth a couple more times just to be sure.

The back one, I filled the wheel cylinder, the MC and the line best I could thorugh the banjo, still had to use Mity Vac. YMMV

[petejw]

to bleed the master cylinder, secure in vice, fill reservior with brake fluid, place your finger over the fluid outlet, apply the handlever while depressing you'll feel air and fluid escaping, hold your finger tight over the outlet hole while releasing the handlever, repeat till all air has escaped, you'll feel and hear the difference.
Be aware that brake fluid may flick up when depressing the lever from the reserviour and spray from around your finger.
let us know if you need to know how to bleed the calipers.

[GARTHXS]

heres the latest

So some of my parts arrived, carbs etc. Thanks Andreas. So installed the carbs and airbox what a pita , vacc and fuel lines , new sparkplugs , and fuses , put gas in the tank and half of it ended up in the airbox and on the ground(damn) so I fixed the offending petcock and waited for the gas to dry up and turned on the key and choked it up turned really nice, but no fire , checked spark, nada. So I called the wiz. He says check the ballast resistor and then the small tci plug so the w/g and w/r don't read right. According to the manual its the #1 pick up coil gone bad looks like ill be atempting the fix. Also all the brakes stuff is on order should be here early next week , m/c rebuild kits new pads and I already have s/s lines for the front , but I need one for the back , any body know what length I should get?

[GARTHXS]

pick up coils

so guess Ill be doing the pick up coil fix , the top coil wires are both broken in two place what I need to do is make some sort of a jumper , its cannibal time . thank goodness for the 80 parts bike! I have saved a lot of money because of that one.

[crazy steve]

To remove caliper pistons, I've used a larger set of external snap ring pliers minus the tips. Works well; don't try to spin the piston, but instead 'rock' it while pulling and they'll usually pop right out.

If you can't get the snap ring plier in there, a 'battery cable terminal tool' (available at your auto parts store, and designed to expand/restore the battery post hole) will usually work too. If the piston bore is too big, shim with some scrap wood.

'78E original owner

[GARTHXS]

thanks cs

If you read the prior posts , I have moved on to other problems since I sorted out the brakes just waiting for parts to reassemble them, now I am going to attempt the pick up coil fix.

[DiverRay]

so guess Ill be doing the pick up coil fix , the top coil wires are both broken in two place what I need to do is make some sort of a jumper , its cannibal time . thank goodness for the 80 parts bike! I have saved a lot of money because of that one.

If you do this, you WILL be back in sooner rather than later!
I've replace a three to four inch section of wire with the black and red lead wire from a VOM. Radio Shack sells the lead wires for about $4.99, and you just splice them in from the coil to the shield around the wires.
JMHO