Final Brake assembly - looking good

     Today is a good day. I assembled the calipers, and they look good. All of the parts i purchased went in like a glove and the refurbished parts look dapper!

     The front calipers were a bitch to get together, mainly due to the rubber boots for the cross bolts. All the other seals went in a treat.

     

     As you can see - they did come out good. Of not, when disassembling , keep the steel ring washer, you can see it in the picture above. It does not come as part of the rebuild kit, and is required to hold the rubber dust cover in place on the moving piston.

     So the calipers went together, the second easier then the first (lessons learnt), now to the master cylinders.


    I restored the piston kit for the front master cylinder and it went together easily. The seals from Kurvygirl slotted into place without the need for trimming or fitting, excellent. As you can see, the plastic of the cylinder, the rhomboid, is a little aged and crazed. But rather than replace at this stage, I wanted to keep it. The lever was just rubbed down with 4000 steel wool. And the rear master was just paint.

     The brakes are now done, well apart from the rear, which i will get too soon. Next tast is the removal of the front end, service and restore the forks, trash the handle bars for some 60s style cafe racer ones and new headlight. Switch gear is going to be serviced and restored, painted same as calipers etc. Off to the next challenge of this irregular build.

Brakes, paint and assembly

     I decided to go with a gun metal / graphite finish for my braking systems, leaving only the levers as polished aluminium. Off to the auto parts store I went, and managed to find, not caliper paint - good for 900 F, but alloy wheel paint - good to 250 F. As this is on calipers open to the wind I went for the wheel paint. Added to which - brake paint comes in four or five basic colours, none of which floated my boat. So graphite alloy wheel paint it was.

 $6.99 a rattle can.

     This paint, I found covers well, you can re-coat after 10 minutes, but after 60 minutes no coating for 7 days, while the paint cures! 2 coats applied - i think they look good. I can handle the calipers after 3 hours, will decide then if they need a rub-down and a final coat of paint. Will assemble mid week, once paint has cured, or will wait until at least the week end (3 days hence).  Then I will leave for a further 3 days or so before packing and storing and onto the next part of the project.

     More to follow on assembly and final pictures.

     There is a little run line / floor on on of my calipers, intend to sand it Wednesday or so and then give it a last coat before assembly can begin. Was my own fault, too eager to coat and put a little too much pain on in a pass. 😞

Brakes vs me, almost 40 years of crud.....

     So, now everything is back to normal, I decided to get back on the cafe racer pony and recommence the restoration.

     Stripped more of the bike, this thing must have kept Home Depot profits up high. All of the ancillaries are now off the front end, just the handle bars remain for moving in and out of my garage. Space is at a premium, oh for a home workshop. 2 more years then I will have my one in Scotland back, maybe in time for my next build (a Z1 or if it's a basket case a MFP Z1, mmmm).

     With that done, found another great resource for OEM parts, Z1 Enterprises. A complete set of seals for a front caliper are $31.00, cheaper than e-Bay. I then returned to my brakes, decided to disassemble completely, all the way down - then repaint, new seals, lines and the new pads that were in the calipers. Brakes were a mess, before and after the clean below. The seals and diaphragms were all gelatinous, sticky and everywhere. A solid combination of elbow grease, acetone and WD-40 aided the clean-up before a thorough de-greasing ready for paint and re-assembly. To totally de-grease and clean the calipers, they may have a visit to the parts washer in the kitchen (don't tell the missus.).

 To get the pistons out, I was a little creative. I do not own a compressor as yet, but have acquired a lathe and milling machine. I also ride push bikes so i have a stirrup air pump for bike tyres. So a few measurements and about 20 minutes on my lathe and i came up with a bike pump to caliper part. Designed as follows - 7 mm thread for the caliper body, 3/8 inch main body (to fit the foot pump) and knurled. A 4 mm hole through the body completes the part:

     Screwed the part into my calipers, blocked the brake line hose with a 10 mm bolt and a bit of 5 mm workshop rubber glove to seal. The one slow compression of the pump eased the piston from the caliper body. I was a pleased as a gypsies dog with 2 dicks. I think the last lot of fluid was water! A there was a lot of rust coloured fluids ejected (see the dirty piston in pic).

     It has to be said, that each caliper took 3 to 4 hours of leisurely work before paint. So all 3 calipers will take around a day and a half of work, yes it could have been cheaper to buy NOS and go from there, but this way I am trying to keep the cafe racer ethos alive, restoring and using as much as i can of the bike, changing what i must for safety and want to for the look. Besides that, NOS Calipers are expensive, eBay was one of the only places to find one, at $285.00! Used ones start at around the ton, and would need a strip down anyways.

     So to the costs:
1. Strip and clean -           $0.00
2. Brake caliper paint -     $9.00
3. Front seal kit x 2 -        $62.00      Total for both caliper refurb = $71.00
4. Master cylinder kit -     $20.00
5. Steel Lines -                 $35.00

     All in all, for the total front end brake referb - not a bad expenditure: lever to pad = $126.00. Am happy with that, and expect a similar result for the rear, once the wheels are out and I can remove the rear caliper.

     The finished calipers will be blogged in around 3 or 4 days (probably a week then).