Front brakes are good
No matter how good your back brake is it will be three times as effective at stopping your bike if you have front brakes to assist in the process. A common failure for front brakes is when the seal blows and begins leaking precious DOT-5 onto your rotor. This tutorial intends to explain how to proceed with this repair.
Remove caliper from fork leg
The caliper(s) are attached to the lower legs of your front end using a pair of fixed depth, limited thread bolts. One is longer than the other. The longer one goes into the top hole and the shorter one in the bottom. The back side of the caliper (without the puck in it) has nut cutouts inwhich you place the nuts that correspond to these bolts. The pupose of these bolts is strickly to hold the caliper in place. Once you have removed these two bolts and nuts you can slide the caliper back towards the bike frame and up and off of the rotor.
Break the caliper halves
On the back side of the caliper you will find a 9/16 (or was it 5/8) bolt. You must remove this bolt in order to split the caliper. The two halves should seperate very easily once this bolt is removed. Lay the caliper in your hand with the ouside facing up and lift off the outside half. This will leave behind the spacers/shims, pads and pins that make up the brake unit. Not which shim goes on the front and back sides of the mechanism as they are not the same.
Check your master cylinder brake fluid level and don’t let the master cyclinder start sucking any air by topping off the fluid as needed. With the caliper seperated and holding the puck side in one hand slowly pump the from brake lever. With each pump you should see the puck moving further and further out of its seat in the caliper. As it gets near to its end of travel (almost an inch) you need to pay attention and have a catch can of some sort since when the puck comes out there will be quite a bit of fluid filling the void left behind as we pumped out the puck. Once the puck is clear of the housing dump the brake fluid from the caliper into your catch can.
Remove old dust boot and seal
You will see the dust boot on the outside face of the caliper half. It is very soft and easily removed by grabbing it anywhere you can and working the retining lip out of its grove in the caliper body. Futher recessed inside the caliper you will see a wide rubber band looking ring. This is the actual seal itself. There is plenty of slop in the groove that the seal sits in. Use your fingernail to catch and remove the old seal. This part couldn’t be simpler.
Replace seal and dust boot
Clean the caliper as needed to insure that there is no debris in any of the retaining slot within the caliper body. Get the new seal from your seal kit and slide it into the seal slot in the caliper. Repeat this process with the dust boot making sure that the retaining ring fits neatly into its groove in the caliper.
Press puck back into position
Crack the brake bleeder open pretty wide and leave it that way. Clean the puck of any foreign debris of dirt. Inspect the puck for any obvious signs of wear. Replace it if it contains any deep grooves, gouges or rough spots. Insert the puck into the duct boot and slide it through the seal as far as you can (by hand.) Get one of the old brake pads you are replacing and place it over the puck face. Get a C-clamp that is large enough to span the caliper body. Slowly apply clamp pressure until the puck is more or less even with the face of the caliper body. Tighten the bleeder valve.
Re-assemble the caliper
Replace any brake pins that show grooves or anything that could interfere with the brake pads sliding on the pins. insert the pins into one or the other half of the caliper. Place the corresponding shim onto the pins. Next place a new pad with the fiber side facing the rotor. Place the second pad the same way such the the fiber pads are facing each other toward the center of the caliper. Install the remaing shim (you did remember which one went where right?) Align the pins to the holes in the caliper backing half and bring the two halves back together. Align the aligment pin and replace the bolt that holds them together.
Replace caliper on lower leg mount
Place a nut into each of the recessed nut locker recesses and hold them there with one finger on each. Align the caliper with the rotor so that the rotor inserts between the pads. Slide the caliper over the rotor to where it will align with the mounting gussets on the lower leg. Insert both bolts so they will hold the nuts in place. It might take a couple of tries to pull this off without dropping one of the nuts. It isn’t rocket science though – you’ll figure it out! Tighten the mounting bolts using an allen wrench.
Bleed the air from the caliper
Use standard bleeding procedure to remove the air in the caliper. Pump, hold, loosen, bleed, tighten and repeat until you get no air bubbles coming from the caliper and the brake lever is firm. Here again pay attention that you do not allow the brake fluid resevoir to get so low that it lets the master cylinder suck air. Top it off as needed during and after bleeding.
Repeat for second caliper (dual disk front ends)
For a dual disk front end this procedure will need to be repeated for the second caliper.
Hope this helps for those of you whom haven’t learned this procedure yet. Please let me know of any corrections or clarifications that would be helpful.
What Have I Got?
850 miles on the speedo now and I admit to myself that there is a vibration that comes and goes on the road. Also feel some sort of “hammering” when just sitting astride the bike with it idling at a low pace. I posted a query on a few other blogs and somebody suggested that the front drive sprocket on the tranny is known to work loose on this model bike and it could be causing the vibration. Sounds reasonable to me. That is just the kind of vibration it felt like – gear wobbling on its shaft. Into the garage to pull the inner and outer primary so I can have a look.
The fun begins
Get the bike on a bike jack so I can lift her a bit off the floor for a better working angle. Outer primary comes off easy enough. Gasket still good too. Locate my trusty pressure plate washer. Lock down the pressure plate springs and remove the pressure plate, 5 fiber and 4 steel plates of the clutch assembly. Clutch hub nut (left handed threads) comes off just fine. Now for the compensating sprocket. Wow – what a surprise. I have had many compensating sprockets off of Harleys in the past. Some of them pretty damned tight too. Nothing even compares to this one.
Wedge a gear jam between the bottom of the front primary sprocket and the top of the clutch basket sprocket to lock them gainst each other. Get out the inch and a half socket and breaker bar. Give it ALL I have and cannot budge the nut. No problem I says. Need a cheater pipe. After acquiring a 3 foot piece of galvanized pipe we are back at it. One guys holding the bike steady on the jack and two of us pulling on the cheater. Nothing breaks loose. Wow. This SOB is TIGHT.
Take a break and then give another try. Just me this time. I put almost all I have into the counter-clockwise (right hand thread) bolt head. Nothing. A little more. Nothing. Screw this! All I have got. SNAP. Half inch drive breaker bar twists off at the socket head. Gear jamming tool is completely jammed between the sprockets. Not coming out unless the compensator comes loose or I get a torch on it and cut it out! The 2 hour project just got a lot more complicated.
We have decided that whomever put the bike together last must have filled the compensator bolt with red locktite and then put the damned thing back together. A normal application of locktite would never have been able to withstand the torque I was applying to this thing. So, I guess I am going to get a torch and heat the damned thing up to where the locktite melts and give it another try (after replacing my twisted off breaker bar of course.) For today – done.
I know Screamin Eagle used to make a “race brace” that bolted the right side of the tranny to the right side of the motor. This brace stiffens the coupling between the engine and tansmission and is supposed to eliminate many problems with inner primary failure to rear exhaust clamp failure. HD recalled them all due to rear brake interference.
I think I can get around the brake issue since my forward controls have an offset brake activation rod. However, I have no idea what the brace originally looked like.
Did it bolt from the transmission to the oil pump body or onto the timing cover or cases somehow? Anybody got a picture of one installed?
Appreciate any assistance.
UPDATE
Many thanks to Joe McCaskill. I now have the following picture of a working race brace. This one was custom built at an aircraft fabricating plant. Should be able to reproduce it with “a little help from my friends.”
This system incorporates not only a brace between the transmission and the motor but also provides a mounting flange for the from pipe. I believe he also has the stock exhaust mounting hardware in place.
Click on the image for a larger view of this system.
My motorcycle maintenence diary
As noted on my homepage I recently acquired a 1982 FXRS with some 41,000 miles on it. My rational analysis of the impact on my life of this purchase revealed that I would be spending more of my time in the garage until I had discovered any deep dark secrets my baby had in store for me. She ran strong right off the trailer. There were a few obvious things that had to be addressed right away
- The motor shook quite a bit in the frame.
- The front brake caliper on the left side was leaking fluids onto the rotor.
- The front brake master cyclinder was leaking at the brake line connector.
- The exhaust mounting system was inadequate to the task.
I ordered an aftermarket motor mount made of polyurethane polymer instead of rubber. A much beefier unit than the OEM part (which was not only hard and worn out but was very loose in its connection to the frame. Seemed that I was starting in the right place in my repair process. Installed and correctly torqued the new motormount. Big improvement in item #1 above. Maybe this is what was causing the exhaust pipe clamps to break as well? Excessive shaking will do it.
Ordered dual disk front caliper seal kit to rebuild the front calipers, replacement brake pads and front brake master cyclinder rebuild kit.. I am a true believer in front brakes! When I got the bike the front brake was so weak I couldn’t hod the bike on the trailer while trying to load it on the tilt bed! Installed the seal kit. Cleanup up the nasty rotors. Then I pulled the master cyclinder apart and rebuilt it with all new seals and components. After bleeding the air from the system I had some stopping power in my right hand. Big improvement. NOTE: if you order seals for a dual caliper system it will actually contain seals for both calipers – same is true for the pads themselves. No need to order one for each caliper. I now have a spare set for the future!
Next, replace the broken clamps on the front and rear exhaust pipe with a vintage pair of brackets left over from my 78 1/2 shovelhead. Kind of ugly but they are strong. Shaking pipe under better control now.
Change all fluids and filters so we know where everything stands in terms of lubrication. Let’s ride and see what I’ve got.
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Okay, I’ll make the first “where can I find” post. I would like to get the stock mounting hardware for the exhaust on my 82 FXRS. I can get the rubber frame mount from bikebandits but they don’t have the muffler support bar itself. Anybody got one in the garage they want to part with? Any 82/83 (maybe even later) FXR model will do.
FOUND. Many thanks parts.finder! I’ll be mounting this baby up this weekend!
Ride safe – eveybody out there really is trying to kill you!
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