Brake Q for RK owners.

[Dave63]

My neighbor has a 2004 RKC. The front brake lever pulls in kinda far to me, (and him) despite good pads, new fluid and proper bleeding. Anyone else have this issue?????

The lever almost bottoms out on the throttle.... The brakes work good, just waaay too much travel in the lever to operate them. It's a dual caliper front brake and it's almost like the master bore is too small and not moving enough fluid, for the two calipers.

Nothing ever replaced. All original, owned since new.

[atrick]

If your sure its bleed right, with older bikes the brake lines swell up from use and old age and the lever goes closer to the handlebars. Used to happen with our motocross bikes and thats a big reason a lot of racing bikes on road or off road use stainless braided lines, they don't swell up or expand. Change your brake lines.

[ktwillys]

given what was said by atrick if your lines are good and they probably are..

you still have air in the system... you may have gotten the majority of the air out of the caliper but you still have an air bubble at the master cylinder fitting. this happens all the time..

wrap a towel around the bars and cover the rest of the bike with something that the fluid cant get through and then pump up the front brake and crack open the banjo bolt at the master cylinder and get the air out..
make sure you have the handlebars turned so that the banjo fitting is at its highest point ......

[Dave63]

Originally Posted by ktwillys

given what was said by atrick if your lines are good and they probably are..

you still have air in the system... you may have gotten the majority of the air out of the caliper but you still have an air bubble at the master cylinder fitting. this happens all the time..

wrap a towel around the bars and cover the rest of the bike with something that the fluid cant get through and then pump up the front brake and crack open the banjo bolt at the master cylinder and get the air out..
make sure you have the handlebars turned so that the banjo fitting is at its highest point ......

Thank you sir, I'll try that. The bike has been this way since new, but I'll try anything at this point.

I asked the owner why he didn't complain to the dealer after he got it, and he said he thought it was supposed to be this way......

I'll let you know how it turns out.

[DR_DEUCE]

Clean the pistons in each caliper. If you back off the pads with a putty knife, then actuate the lever, you'll probably see one or more of the pistons stuck, or crooked. Front is especially suseptible to road grime and dust/dirt. There are 4 pistons in each caliper.

[kemo]

The DR is correct, you have to clean the caliper pistons of crap so that they can freely retract and return.