Front brake victory!

Since I am poor at the moment I cannot afford the upgrade to my brake so my only option was to try and make the original work. The problem I had was that if you kept pressure on the brake lever it would sometimes pull all the way back to the grip. I took it apart and it didn't look too bad. The seals appeared sound and I was perplexed at why the master cylinder was not working correctly. I loaded up my odds and ends and drove the short way to Phil Radford's Fair Spares shop. Phil is a great guy and has helped me alot during the restoration of my bike.

Looking over my master cylinder parts Phil thought that they possibly could be made to work. He honed the bore and I purchased a rebuild kit. I was almost out the door when Phil noticed that something was missing. The little tiny valve called a 'inner plastic bobbin' in the manual was not present. Since this part sits on the rubber valve base inside the spring, it could only be that the last person who worked on the master cylinder overlooked this part during assembly! And that means that my front brake has never operated correctly. Holy crap. Scary.

I got home and cleaned everything up and painted the master cylinder and detailed all the odds and ends in the hope that this thing would be operational when I put it back together.



Being broke has forced me to work through these little issues and it's kinda fun really. I was amazed at how good the master cylinder looked after painting with $3.00 spray paint!

The brake workes great now. Well it works like a stock front Comando brake works. I know it is not perfect but at least I can ride my bike until I get the funds to purchase the upgraded master cylinder. What's next?

Good way to look at it! I love to tinker so a few things along the way are ok. I don't know what I'd do if I had a new bike, LOL. :wink:

Glad to hear the rebuild went well. Everyone likes to complain about the disk brake these days, but back in the day we all thought it was pretty darn good.

Chuck, if you bought a new Ducati you might find yourself spending more time and money on it than you do on your Norton! :wink:

Debby

Hortons Norton said:

Good way to look at it! I love to tinker so a few things along the way are ok. I don't know what I'd do if I had a new bike, LOL. :wink:

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It isn't so much that the stock brake is bad but that it isn't as good as the ability to accelerate! For most circumstances it works just fine, as in slowing you down before you get a ticket. :wink:

I've be having another look into factory master cylinder soon on Trixie that sat up 3 yrs so see if I'm missing something, but I don't believe that little restrict-or has anything to do with you better brake action but do believe you corrected internal leaks that could not be seen on visual or feel inspection. For just labor and and red hot nail can take out All restriction to lever-piston force and see if I'm full of it or not. Mainly what the plastic piece does in help set the piston return spring action and how deep piston travels inward.

That's how I did mine - no funds and lots of time, well lets just say that the lack of funds contributed to the length of time the resto took.
Satisfying isn't it, to make old abused stuff work right! ?

My New Orleans '72 Trixie Combat has weak front disc that took my strong grip to work - almost like a worn out drum brake bad. Going by my past Peel experiments I just cleaned it all up inside but replaced rusted caliper pucks with SS versions and poked a big red hot nail through the big rubber boot/valve and got lock up ease below 45 mph and ABS like squeal over that speed. I've no desire or plans or need to improve her brake further. If you have a weak grip then a sleeved master cylinder is nice, but don't slow ya down any faster than slight modifed factory set up, just less squeeze effort. Ms Peel/'72 with sleeved m/c and race lever and SS hose and lightened rotor can lock up front up to 65 mph and ABS squeal tire way over the ton, but don't stop any better on same size tire than pure factory brake in good order.

In a panic grip I can lock tire at 100+ mph and have to practice that scary state but the slow down suddenly goes away as does directional control, just like over braked sports bikes on fat tires if not skilled-practiced to feather them in a panic or prevent stoppie flip over bars. I don't like my SV's dual brakes or Ninja's compared to good fettered Lockheed kit. I need and use brakes in many bad states so have a very strong opinion now to judge what is pure opinion or life death damage avoidance reality in my world.