Braking In The New Year

Shadowfax Bleeding


Since Mike (Motorcycle Mechanic, Fareham) fitted Shadowfax's new shoes and had trouble bleeding the brakes I've had unease at the brakes' effectiveness. I rode through the "wear in the new pads" bit and still found no improvement. Applying the rear brake required "double-tapping" the peddle to feel effective pressure but braking was overall reduced. The front end would brake but not as firmly and dive was increased.

Once New Year was out of the way and Ka and I had ridden back up to Oxford via a fairly comfortable A34 through Newbury's -1 degree white ice frosting and demonstrated the windshield up advantages to her I popped in to see Mike again. He was entirely wonderful and we set to bleeding the brakes according to the ST1300 protocols I found referenced on the Net and detailed in the poorly PDF'd workshop manual.

Bleeding an ST wouldn't be straight forward, would it? And being Honda I quickly learned the brake system design meeting must have gone something like this;

    "Well done, we've shoe-horned the 1300cc engine into Yukitissue's excellent frame puzzle, its cooling, ignition, and transmission systems and, erm, what's next?"
    "Please, Sir. It'd be the brakes?"
    "Yes, excellent - and with a car engine we need a car's stopping power: ABS - linked, too, yes?"
    "Yes, Sir!"
    "So disks on the wheels, pads in the calipers, and ABS control under the side fairing against the tank with the proportional control valve bleeding point hidden from view so no one on this Earth except our specially trained technicians know where it is?"
    (Round of applause: then important business such as more mind altering substance abuse and a round of golf with the boss's pet robot doing caddy up Mt Fiji).


Getting Shadowfax fully naked to bleed his brakes!

So, I stripped off the RHS cowling and we tipped the front LHS caliper its 15-degrees off horizontal and we played "snap" between the manuals photos and pieces of Shadowfax's anatomy. Mike deftly bled the system according to all instructions except without a vacuum bleeding kit, which didn't seem to make any difference to the result.

Releasing the front LHS caliper to tip to 15-degrees (mad!)

Now Shadowfax's rear brake pedal is linked to the the front brake and doesn't need the double-tap to slow and the front feels tight. Unfortunately the front brake lever is no longer linked tot he rear brake. Hmm. Needs thinking, this. I don't think it's a bleeding issue.

(Cheers to Mike for spending so long "learning" the system to help get the issue sorted without drama or question. It's not like he didn't have his own headache already, either).

Britney - elated at Honda's invitation to design the ST1300's brake system so soon after they heard of her recently having achieved a Brake Don

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Picking up Sherbert

Image
To recap, we'd been awake and travelling to Offenburg, Germany since 2:30 am. Bikemoto's offer of a free coffee felt overwhelmingly generous while we waited for Sherbert's paperwork to be readied. There was a hire agreement to cover our ride back to Ireland, the ownership documentation, Certificate of Compliance, manuals, sales agreements, and more. It all took time. All the time I was taking stock of the enormity of the day and second-guessing the plan. Self doubt I'd not ridden for nearly 5 years since fixing Arod's speedometer sensor and finding his fork seals were leaking. COVID 19 and working from home were little motivation to set things right. Now I am about to ride a new-to-me model of bike I've not ridden before. Sherbert is heavier than an ST1300, a weightier insurance liability, and has a dual clutch transmission (DCT). He's extra expensive to buy and more-so to fix. I'm riding on the right side of the road in Europe and with my wife rid
Read more

28 February - Jammed Screen Blues

Head Trauma The LHS winder for the screen is jammed. I’ve had the screen at a medium-high stetting for the cold and rain but this really gives some buffeting in some conditions – especially at speed on the M-ways. It was so bad on the way to Stoke I had to stop and hand-force the screen all the way down for some relief. It needs either another overhaul (gave it a good oiling when symptoms first appeared) or replacement, which is just so expensive. Even a knackered one from a ‘brakers seems to command an inflated £100+ tag. Daft greedy b’stards. Anyway – the jobs waiting for a quieter moment. Too much going on to rip the plastics off Shadowfax just now. We both have a job to do.
Read more

To Offenburg from beyond

Image
Offenburg is a couple of hours south of Frankfurt.  Initial plans were to fly to Frankfurt, catch a train to Offenburg, and then a taxi to the bike shop. Unfortunately, RyanAir fly to Frankfurt Hahn airport and don't hint at the fact Hahn is two hours west of Frankfurt. We discovered that gem after booking the flights. No plan survives first contact, right? So we adapted and hired a car to drive the 3 hours to Offenburg. Adapt or fail We learned that RyanAir will only allow helmets on spare seats–one helmet per seat by the read of it. Otherwise your life-saving equipment needs to go in the hold to be crushed, battered, and invisibly compromised by damage. Our new Shuberth C5s had arrived only a couple of days ahead of the flight in two smart boxes within a single purpose sized box. Mrs G called RyanAir and confirmed a 'suitcase' can be a box and what the maximum dimensions can be.  The box fitted the bill. Into Hahn Typically, the Friday flight out was at around 6am and w
Read more