December 06th, 2015

Well, hello there. Where have I been? I'll tell you. I've been stuck in the bloody car that's where. With either freezing weather, very strong winds, or massive downpours peppering the countryside, the car has been the only logical choice for the monster commute. Well, thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it. 
With a week off work (ironically two months before they make me redundant), earlier this week I took a trip up to Motorcycle Live at the NEC. It was another excellent show with a strong showing from all the major manufactures and most, if not all, of the smaller ones. I plan on getting a little write up onto the site shortly, but in the meantime, here are just a few little snaps from the day.

After spending money at the show on parts that will need to be delivered, my main bike job this week was to strip and rebuild the front calipers and treat the Fireblade with a healthy dose of ACF-50 and get the bike ready for winter. The FireBlade is no summer toy and will be ridden during the winter, although maybe not to work. We shall see.
As you would expect, it was fairly simple taking everything apart and the front calipers, fairings and wheels all came off nice and quickly. With the calipers out, I was able to get two pistons from each one out, but I couldn't get enough grip to release the other two, which meant they needed to be split. Quick call to Stu at Conquest and we had four bits of calipers ready for cleaning and new seals.

With all the pistons and new seals all put in, it was time to give the bike the decent clean and then treat it with the ACF-50. I thought it best to do this with both wheels out as I could then be as liberal as I wanted.
With the wheels back in (eventually) and the calipers back together and hoses hooked up, it was time to populate the system.
What was supposed to be an hour job, took much longer and if I'm being honest, the job isn't even finished. 
It took ages to get the fluid to the calipers and then when I did, when bleeding the system, my pressure vacum pump proceeded on spraying brake fluid all over my garage floor, so I had to revert back to the old fashioned way. 
On both calipers I'm not getting any bubbles coming through and the brakes still feel far too soft and spongy. It was getting late and I was getting frustrated and as we know, technology and violence don't mix. I'm so utterly pissed off with this job now that when I have time, I'm going to ride it (slowly) to Conquest, give them some money and ask them to do it.
What was supposed to be a fun, feel good job has soured the day totally. I'm sure there's a simple reason why I can't bleed them up (I've bleed several systems before and they were fine) but I've reached the end of my tether with this one. 
So, the FireBlade sits in the garage, panels off with her wheels and calipers back on, but won't be used for work purposes. Hopefully once the brakes are back up to scratch, the R&G engine cases I've ordered will have turned off. Cross fingers.