Bikesure_adrianflux

On the road again.

utopia

utopia

No turn left unstoned
Joined
Jun 22, 2010
Messages
4,659
Location
leicester
Bike
M750
New belts from exactfit installed last week.
Mot last friday.
Taxed today from the first of the month.
I feel like singing that Canned Heat song.

I've been off the road for a couple of years.
Lost a couple of biking mates who used to keep my enthusiasm on the boil.
And also, I know its a bit over the top but I've been baulking at the idea of burning petrol just in the pursuit of pleasure and I've defaulted to pedal power during the layoff.
But the monster will always be a keeper and its daft not to use it.

So, assuming the club continues to exist, I now need to arrange some events in the midlands area, as previously promised.
 
Good stuff, great to know another Monster back in business. 😀 Strange business this petrol thing, I’ve felt a wee bit “guilty” using up the scarce resource…but I’ve tempered the feeling by worrying about how next Winter’s heating charges will be met. 😤
My wife and I are planning a trip to Slovenia at the end of May and I must admit to some jitters re price and availability.
I pour over Google on a daily basis looking for any scare stories of shortages sur le continent…..so far nothing has appeared except a supppsed jet fuel shortage.
Mr Milliband’s misguided energy policy has certainly come home to roost when we learn that all jet fuel and diesel is imported, meanwhile Grangemouth is on the cusp of closure because the commercial electricity price in the UK is up to 4 times more expensive than our EU or US competitors. 🤬
 
Don't ever feel guilty about turning dinosaur juice into noise and adrenaline, life is short and the purpose of life is to enjoy it, riding motorcycle is the purest form of enjoyment that money can buy, every day you don't ride, is a day you'll never get back...
 
I'm past 60 and I ride as often as I can, however my (moto) riding season is coming to a close, it's just too hot in the Spanish summer to wear all the 'ropa de moto' I'll be back on the emtb soon, shorts, helmet and factor 30...

I love the smell of hydrocarbons in the morning ;-)
 
Mark64 said:
Don't ever feel guilty about turning dinosaur juice into noise and adrenaline, life is short and the purpose of life is to enjoy it, riding motorcycle is the purest form of enjoyment that money can buy, every day you don't ride, is a day you'll never get back...
Click to expand...
Well said,apart from my bikes I also love my V8
 
Well I've done a couple of shortish runs out on the monster, both around 50 miles or so, including a day out at the recent BSB meeting at Donington.
These passed mostly without incident .... apart from would you believe it, getting caught in torrential rain on the way back from Donington, which was probably the first time the bike has seen rain in 7 or 8 years.
Anyway, in retrospect I think I did wonder at one point if I had a dragging brake somewhere as the bike seemed reluctant to coast smoothly at low speed, but it cleared almost as quickly as it had appeared and so I didn't fuss too much.
Fast forward a week or two and the next outing was to be a short run out from Leicester to Nuneaton last sunday evening to see a gig by a local band who brilliantly cover early Rolling Stones material.
This was on the first of the really hot days that we've had recently.
First stop was the local Esso garage, about a mile from my house, for a gallon or two of their finest, ethanol free.
On the way I immediately noticed the dragging brake thing again after only a couple of hundred yards, and on arrival at the garage I gingerly touched the rear brake disc and found it to be finger-burningly hot.
I limped back home at ultra low speed and reverted to the car for the evening.
Its my own fault really, as all the hydraulic fluids were probably 7 or 8 years old and I should have changed them as a matter of course on first recommissioning the bike. I would have done so fairly soon anyway, but should have done it straight away.
My diagnosis is that the fluid has absorbed moisture during both the years of previous use and then the layoff, and the hot weather has then caused the contaminated fluid to expand and hence the immediate brake binding.

The reason I'm posting all this is because it was (still is) my intention to get some local rides and stuff organised now that the bike is back on the road but this is now delayed until I have fully cured and road tested my binding brake issue.
I very nearly flagged up the Stones gig as a rideout actually, but thought it might not get any takers. Glad I didn't now.
 
Well you get what you deserve if you don't change your brake fluid!...

Sorry that was harsh!
I have a brake fluid tester and use it every now and then. I've discovered that it lasts longer than the prescribed year, or is it two years?
But also when it does turn it tends to go off the scale!

Old fluid could well be the cause of your problem and I think you may have got away light. My very first ride on my Monster, many years ago, was to an MOT test and I had adjusted the rear brake up quite crisply I thought.
Coming home "the long way", I came to a shuddering halt about a mile down the road. It did cool off and go free again, but repeated this several times before I got home.
Then I read the manual and noted the free play spec for the rear brake lever.
From memory I think it's 2mm at the stop/adjuster, which does equate to quite a lot of pedal travel, but it works and I've had no trouble since, including on that searing Solstice Tunnel run in London some years back. (I think you were there?)

Stafford had this problem at Capo's funeral if you recall? He dealt with it by levering the pads apart with my screwdriver and presumably tried to keep off the back brake for his journey home.

(Bike meet at the Earsham Queen's Head near Bungay on Saturday. 12pm onwards.... Just sayin'. ;) Might be there on my Monster. 🤫)
 
No, it wasn't harsh ... you're dead right.
Although in my defence, I was planning to change it soon after getting back on the road. But that wasn't soon enough really.

I did check the free play at the lever when I arrived at the petrol station and all seemed fine there.

And yes, I was there at the searing solstice tunnel run back then.
As I recall, it was still searing hot on my way back up the motorway long after dark.
 
Of course! I remember you getting pulled by a couple of girls in Soho at about 2 in the morning. :ROFLMAO:
It cooled off for me going up the A11/M11 just before dawn, when I pulled over and put another layer back on. Then watched the Sun come up over Norfolk.... Beautiful.
 
Oh!? I thought yours were really girls? Although probably rusty bikes?
I know Grumpy was accosted by a big tall lady boy opposite Ronnie Scott's. :giggle:

Speaking of getting what you deserve, I guess we weren't too surprised given it was Pride weekend. (y)
 
Bit of an update on my rear brake issue ......

I bought some new fluid a few weeks ago but its been so hot over recent times that I couldn't stand being in the shed for more than a few moments, so things got shoved back in the schedule.
Also, being fussy, I didn't want to change all the hydraulic fluids while the humidity was so high.
Things have cooled down now and so yesterday I set about a deeper investigation of the rear brake.
Caliper removed and deep cleaned .... all seemed fine there except that, having advanced the pistons to clean the seal areas, although they moved freely I couldn't get them to both retract to their normal positions. Pushing one piston in merely made the other piston move further out.
I therefore suspected an issue with the master cylinder.
Removing the rubber dust boot I was shocked at the amount of gunge that was in there.
A deeper inspection was clearly required so I removed the complete hydraulic system.
Once on the bench, I removed the master cylinder, scraped out the gunge under the boot along with a bit of corrosion around the circlip (why don't brembo use a stainless one ?) and after much fiddling, managed to extract the piston.
To be honest it all looked fairly grim in there and in particular the piston showed a slightly rough, stained area where the o-ring seal sits.
I had pretty much decided by now, mostly because of the marks on the piston, that rather than a rebuild kit, the best course of action was to shell out for a complete new master cylinder.
But having nothing to lose, I decided on having a quick bash at cleaning up the piston.
A magnet showed the piston to be ally and it has a dark coating, which may be anodising or perhaps even a teflon coating.
Thinking that I needed to use the gentlest possible process in order to retain both the coating and the full dimension, I suddenly remembered the old trick of "stringing" crankshaft journals to microscopically "tune" their size.
I was always a bit sceptical of this workshop mythology but in this case I fancied that if I used brake fluid instead of the Brasso of legend, I might just achieve a gentle polishing without damage.
Well it only bloody worked a treat, didn't it.
The piston has come up virtually spotless, as smooth as you like and with no damage whatsoever to the black coating.
Yippity, dippity, doo dah day.
The main seal looks fine so I'm going to put it all back together and see how it performs.

I had been hoping to make the run out to the bike meet that Gazza flagged up this weekend but that was starting to look unlikely.
But now, maybe I could get the bike sorted (and tested locally a few times) before the end of the week.
Fingers crossed.
 
Re one piston coming out when you lever the other one in; That's how hydraulics work when you think about it.
Unless there is somewhere for the oil to escape from the system one piston will always push the other.
The only route out for the fluid when pressurised from the caliper is via the tiny bleed hole in the master which is where the fluid usually enters from the reservoir. If you go gently but persistently both pistons will eventually go back, but the reservoir will probably spill over.

I log everything I do to the Monster and over the years it has been the back brake that has needed the most attention.
The caliper body, it's pistons and reservoir are the only parts that still remain from when I first got the bike
It's had 3 discs, 3 hoses, 3 sets of floating caliper pivot bushes 3 caliper brackets, one complete master, several rose joints on the torque rod and a fair bit of fluid, not to mention pads.

It played up for a long time doing weird things and the only solution to that was a complete new master, which made it better than it ever had been for a little while.
The floating caliper set up was very prone to wear and threw up a weird thing at one MOT where the wheel locked when rotated backwards.
Turned out that the pads had worn into wedge shapes and were acting a bit like a sprag clutch of sorts, so lots of new bits to sort that out!

I finally got exasperated with the floating caliper and fitted a rigid overhead bracket.
This works just as well if not better than the floater and I'm hoping to see much less wear.
It also enabled me to fit the centre stand, which is far more useful. The weight saved by binning the floater gear nearly offset the stand.

Jeff, if you want to come to the Clunkers meet on 12th of July, we'll have it at Arbuckle's or perhaps the Prick willow Engine Museum near Ely.
Capo suggested that as a meeting place just before the lockdowns started and we still haven't been!
 
Well yes, I was thinking that with the master cylinder fully retracted, there would be a reverse path back to the reservoir through the bleed hole that you mention.
But despite my efforts to push both caliper pistons at the same time, they both remained immoveable (unless one side was relieved) and the fluid level in the reservoir remained stubbornly static.
I assumed that this was due to a fault in the master cyl which was preventing its piston from fully retracting and thus the bleed hole was covered.
I tried disconnecting (and removing) the operating pushrod but that made no difference.
It turned out that there was a fault with the master and it probably was restricting the return of its piston, but I still don't fully understand what's going on.
Now that I've seen the gubbins though, I realise that the pathway to the reservoir is more complicated than one might imagine at first sight.
There is a groove in the piston which appears to align with the bleed hole from the res when the piston is fully retracted, but then there are three really tiny holes running (logitudinally) to a thin shim washer which is behind the cup seal. These look as if they deliver fluid to the reverse (ie non-pressure) side of the cup seal, from whence it is drawn past the seal lips under suction as the piston retracts.
........ or something like that. I haven't fully got my head round it yet.
But anyway, I've rebuilt the master with all the original bits and I can't see any reason why it should not work properly now.
We'll see if it allows the caliper pistons to both retract now that everything's slick.
I guess I'll post something more on that.

But after that there will need to be a significant period of testing close to home before I would trust the rear brake not to cook on a long run.
Similar to yourself, I've had issues with the rear brake before, though always with the std, non-floating, underslung set-up.
There was a time when the disc used to heat mildly on occasion and I got in the habit of touching it to check (gingerly) as soon as I parked up.
It was never seriously hot but something was obviously not quite right.
That seemed to be solved when I fitted a spare caliper that Capo gave me. I assumed that the cure was because its fresh seals were pulling the pistons back slightly further ..... although maybe when I fitted it, I also cleaned up the master cyl as a matter of course and thus made the wrong assumption at the time.
 
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