Paul Bryant
Living Legend
Last week I went for a blast up the Valley and back for a little bit of stress relief, great ride, no problems.
I got home parked the bike just outside the house and went off and did other stuff.
Came back about an hour later to put the Bike away, just rolled down the hill to the workshop .....
Holy crap ! no back brake. Nothing, zero, zip, nada ! the lever was just solid as if there was a stone jammed in the mechanism.
Checked that out, nope clean as a whistle.
So I started cracking the brake line at the various joints, firstly at the Master Cylinder, yep fluid there.
Next at the brake light switch, yep fluid there.
Next at the caliper. Nope ! no fluid there
So O.K. I stripped the complete line off the bike, I found that I could slightly rotate the banjo joint where the line bolts to the caliper
I got the disc grinder out and carefully sectioned this fitting (hey it was stuffed anyway)
On dis-assembly I found that the banjo fitting had not been fitted correctly from new, instead of the fitting sliding into the center of the tube liner, it had been pushed between the tube liner and the outer skin.
How this brake has been working just fine for 11 odd years and now all of a sudden it just stops, I have no idea.
I've had two new lines made up, have fitted them but as yet haven't bleed the system.
Interestingly, apart from the bike having a low spec brake fluid in the system when I first got the bike, which caused the brake to fade to nothing when hot, (Hi spec fluid solved that problem) the rear brake has been absolutely fine.
It's a little hard to see but you can just see how the fitting has gone down the outside of the inner tube.
I got home parked the bike just outside the house and went off and did other stuff.
Came back about an hour later to put the Bike away, just rolled down the hill to the workshop .....
Holy crap ! no back brake. Nothing, zero, zip, nada ! the lever was just solid as if there was a stone jammed in the mechanism.
Checked that out, nope clean as a whistle.
So I started cracking the brake line at the various joints, firstly at the Master Cylinder, yep fluid there.
Next at the brake light switch, yep fluid there.
Next at the caliper. Nope ! no fluid there
So O.K. I stripped the complete line off the bike, I found that I could slightly rotate the banjo joint where the line bolts to the caliper
I got the disc grinder out and carefully sectioned this fitting (hey it was stuffed anyway)
On dis-assembly I found that the banjo fitting had not been fitted correctly from new, instead of the fitting sliding into the center of the tube liner, it had been pushed between the tube liner and the outer skin.
How this brake has been working just fine for 11 odd years and now all of a sudden it just stops, I have no idea.
I've had two new lines made up, have fitted them but as yet haven't bleed the system.
Interestingly, apart from the bike having a low spec brake fluid in the system when I first got the bike, which caused the brake to fade to nothing when hot, (Hi spec fluid solved that problem) the rear brake has been absolutely fine.
It's a little hard to see but you can just see how the fitting has gone down the outside of the inner tube.
