Why You NEED TO REPLACE Original brake lines w/pics

Wouldn't be surprised if the caliper looks something like this:

 

Great. Can't wait.

Where's the caliper-rebuild thread, again?


Also, don't worry about my master cylinder. I have flat handlebars now, and Len hooked me up with a new master cylinder that will sit a little more level.

 

BaldWonder

I'm not suprised with what you found, the stuff I had in my calipers looked even worse than yours. It felt like "caramel" or heavy brown grease if you prefer.

Do you know the last time brake fluid was changed?

 

I've owned the bike for three or four years now and have never touched the brakes until now. I imagine the same goes for all of the other previous owners. I know there have been at least three previous owners, but I have the impression there have been many more.

Good thing I know better now, eh?

 

Yeah scary to think you've been riding around with the brake system in that condition. I rode a whole season before rebuilding my brakes and I gotta say it really freaked me out when I pulled the piston from the caliper and saw what you see in the pic above.
Cleaned and honed:


Here's a link from Chacal's information overload thread on rebuilding:
http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=12529.html
Be sure to get all the crud from the groove that the seal sits in or the piston will bind. I used a dental pick to scrape it out and a wire wheel in a dremel.

 

***TIP***

"Kiss" the baked-in crud with the flame from a propane torch; don't get the metal even hot. Just scorch the crud.

The crud will then crumble and you can easily dig it out with ***TIP #2*** a sharpened kitchen bamboo (shish-kebob) skewer.

The small brass wire brush in the Dremel is a wonderful thing as well.

The seal channels need to be dentally clean.

 

Perfect, thanks! And it just so happens I do have a dental pick and a Dremel. And an excuse to play with fire.

 

Hey Guys,

Looking to replace the brake lines as indicated here. Yet another great piece of advice! One question: Why are there 2 brake lines with a joint instead of a single brake line the whole way down?

 

I forget where I saw it (may have been earlier in this thread, actually) but someone else had asked that question. The answer seemed to be that this was a manufacturing tactic, since some of the other models have dual disc brakes and required three lines and a joint. The single disc models get to use the same parts minus one. Hurray for mass production.

I believe Len has a single line replacement available. I opted to keep the joint as I think I may upgrade to dual disc in the future.

 

Actually, we do not have a single-line replacement available. And, you actually want to keep that elbow or joint as part of the system; it is hard steel and doesn't "give" at all (even the braided lines have some give to them). Think of it this way: the ideal brake system would be nothing but hard steel all the way from the master cylinder to the calipers......that way, there would be no expansion, at all. Flexible lines have to be used in the real world, though. You want to minimize the use of them, though, so keep any hard steel sections (the elbow).

As an aside, the pre-production mock-ups of the 750 Seca models actually show a brake line system which is almost entirely hard steel lines, with just a short piece of rubber hose at the calipers. XJ750 Seca and 900 models actually use a lot more hard steel lines than other models (to "link" the m/c to the distro joint(s), and just like automobiles, the XJ1100 models use a hard steel line from the front to the rear (the XJ1100 models has "linked" front and rear brakes).

 

And this is why I keep reading these forums.

 

once you replace that crudded up and potentially dangerous rubber hose from Reagan's first term how do you refill the new and super improved Chacal Stainless line?

cant get any fluid down into it from the master cylinder on my 550J...

i had the master cylinder rebuild by an auto mechanic and im pretty sure it works as designed...

 

Use a syringe and a length of tubing. Force fill from the caliper bleed fitting. Most of the air will find it's way out as you fill from the caliper. If you don't have a farm store nearby, you can get a syringe for measuring 2-stroke oil at most auto parts stores.

 

My break lines say toyota on them...what's up with that?

I don't see any date indicators like shown here.

Pics? I can post some after work.

thanks for any help!

Rob

 

Wait, what? That's odd.

I checked mine after reading this thread, and it must be from another year of bike or something. 6/80??

 

As an original owner of a 1978 XS1100E, I finally completed the refurbishing of my bike and it is back on the road! I want to give kudos to XJ4Ever for producing the high-quality stainless steel brake lines for my bike. Because I had to replace the front master cylinder with an aftermarket item, the banjo fittings did not match up with the original configuration. Len, at XJ4Ever was tremendous about helping me develop a line that fit perfectly. He sent a test line that was easy to line up and mark, so they could make a line that solved my problem, at no extra cost. That's great service. The lines work great and I really like the feel of the brakes using the stainless steel lines. I also replaced the rear three-piece original configuration with the single-piece line. It make things much easier. Thanks Len and thanks XJ4Ever with helping me with my XS11.

 

Awesome job Fitz

 

Hey Fitz, great entry! Now where do I find stainless steel lines?

Severin

 

Email Len (member Chacal) at info@xj4ever.com. He's your guy for anything for these bikes.

 

"Medical Definition of POISEUILLE'S LAW
: a statement in physics: the velocity of the steady flow of a fluid through a narrow tube (as a blood vessel or a catheter) varies directly as the pressure and the fourth power of the radius of the tube and inversely as the length of the tube and the coefficient of viscosity." Thank you Websters Medical Dictionary.

Poiseuille's law says that the velocity directly as to the pressure and the fourth power of the radius of the tube. A moderate narrowing will have a BIG impact on the velocity (and therefore volume over a given period of time). The pictures on this thread's second page of the narrowings in the brake line internal lumen make me cringe.

I read this thread last year and it prompted me then to re-do the 750. Reread the thread last week, then went outside and checked the date on the new-to-me. Its rubber lines were dated "3/83". Yike!!

New rubber lines would be almost infinitely better than the "3/83" ones. But I'm buying these machines with no intention of getting rid of them (other than the poor parts donor.) This is why I'm putting SS brake lines (many thanks and kudo's to XJ4Ever) in the new-to-me 900. Don't want to worry about pictures like these five or ten years from now.
In addition to the all-the-time risk of the line dissecting under moderate braking pressure, the occasion when I need the brakes the most (hauling in on the lever wanting the brakes to grab HARD and FAST) is the time when they will just not be able to do the work.