brake problems

Hi All,
I dropped my bike a couple times a few months ago. The past few months have been brutal, but I am finally putting aside time to fix her up. Any help with the following would be much appreciated:

- The front brake caliper locked up. I pulled the old one off, and I have a replacement caliper (used). I'm planning to rebuild the caliper before installing it. Haynes manual said to use compressed air to push out the piston... is there any other way to do this?

- I'll be ordering new brake pads, brake line, caliper rebuild kit, etc. etc. from Chacal on Monday. I'm guessing I should also get one of those mity-vac gadgets and caliper cylinder hone? Can't inspect the cylinder at this point since the piston is still in there.

- The pedal end of the rear brake rod is rubbing up against the swing arm, which I'm assuming is very bad. The brake shaft (I mean the part that connects to the pedal) seems to have slipped into the bike-- the shaft isn't flush to the pedal, but rather inset like 1/4" or more. Would this slippage be enough to bring the brake linkage into contact with the swingarm? Or should I be looking somewhere else?

- I haven't started the bike for about 4 months. Anything I should do beforehand?

Many thanks in advance.

 

You can use a grease gun to push the caliper piston out. This method is safer than compressed air, and more effective (IMHO). The bleeder valve just happens to be shaped like a grease zerk... Crack it open about 1 turn, and squeeze the gun a few times. The piston will slowly extend until it's clear of the caliper. Make sure to clean the grease out really good from the caliper, including the banjo and bleeder passages.

There's no need to hone the caliper, since the piston does not make contact with it -- they're separated by the two rubber seals... Make sure you clean out the seal grooves very well. A dremel tool with a wire brush works very well for this.... Make sure that all the old crusty brake fluid is gone.

you should be able to push the brake pedal shaft thingie back out.. It's only held in place by the pedal itself....


EDIT: as for the 4 month thing... It might be a good idea to drain the tank and run some fresh gas through the bowls before starting.

 

Thanks stereomind. I'm off to buy a grease gun right now.

 

i just use the master cylinder to push the piston out - usually only have to top off the brake fluid once to accomplish this - it does kinda make a mess of brake fluid (unless you put the caliper in a plastic bag first) - but, to me, it beats cleaning out all that grease.

edit: the hayne's manual is correct to say, "re-using seals is a false economy" - in my case, they lasted about 3 months before my brakes were stuck again.

 

stereomind-- thanks again for the grease gun tip. It worked perfectly. The inner seal groove was pretty nasty but I was able to get it clean with just a pick and paper towels.

To deal with the rear brake thing I ended up taking off the right side footpeg mount, which turned out not to be necessary. Basically I just undid the adjustment screw for the brake pedal, and that let me push the brake rod free of the swing arm. Then I worked the pedal and applied pressure to the back of the shaft, and that was enough to pull it back into position.