The Water Buffalo-Seemingly never ending cafe project

[shinyribs]

Dontcha just hate that?  

[Hoosier Daddy]

Hey Hey! I found your thread shineyribs... she's a looker for sure!
I kept blowing past it because I thought it was a liquid cooled 2 stroke Suzuki build.
Polished is COOL!

[shinyribs]

Haha. Yeah, the name is kinda misleadingly. Thank man.

[shinyribs]

It's time for another rear tire. Sticking with the Shinko 712 for now since there's one more rear tire left in my front,but I see Conti is making radials for the bikes now.Tempting,but pricey I decided to freshen up some things while i was at it. I was tired of looking at these:

A bud had some NOS spokes I picked up and I powdercoated the hubs. Now the wheels will actually look clean!It always bugged me seeing those old dingy spokes when the rest of the bike was shined up. I just hope these stay nice for a long time. Time will tell.

I modified and old pitchfork sissybar to use as a trueing stand. Worked pretty good. The front wheel trued super easy with an overall of 0.010'' of runout axially and radially. Well within Honda's specs....the rear is still giving me some trouble.

I'm also in the process of hanging another brake on the front of the bike and needed to address the speedo drive issue that goes along with it. Since I'm not using the cable driven speedo I could just eliminate the speedo drive altogether. So I just made a spacer to take its place.And since this bike has sealed wheel bearings the dust seal in the bearing retainer is just extra drag that's not needed. I left the seal to help keep out the bigger stuff but went ahead and trimmed down the spacer that rides in that seal to where it just barely touches now.

Second caliper hung and all sorted! Just gotta order some pads and a new o-ring for it.And polish it of course.I had two braided hoses that came with the GXSR calipers for Hackjob.Their too short for that bike but where the perfect length for this.Lucky me!I couldn't find a banjo bolt that was short enough to fit the caliper,so I just hollowed out the center of the one I had to clear the inverted flare seat that is made into the caliper.Worked out good and it allowed me to leave the threads untouched...i always booger up threads when I try to cut bolts down

It's gonna be nice to have some good braking power on the old girl finally. I hope the stock m/c is up to the task.

[Piute]

        Dual Disc just look Bad Azz setting still even

        I see your holding bike up with bottle jack,I use a Lil scissor one BUT made a soft spacer between the bike N it ,Chevy center bearing cover then filled with odd peaces of fiberglass and Lil resin wax paper between raised a bit (let dry good N snugg)

[Hoosier Daddy]

I think you may be disappointed with the stock master cyl performance. Being it was designed for only one caliper, I wonder if it will have enough displacemant (volume) to handle two. Also have the correct feel, either mooshy or wooden, can't remember which it may be if the bore is too small.

[shinyribs]

You're right, I'm just hoping for the best at this point. Especially since these calipers (one is a F the other is an A)  have larger bores than the K's. General consensus is too small of a MC bore results in excessive lever travel. Some call that mushy, others call it range of modulation. Too big of a MC bore moves so much fluid some call it too touchy, others call it wooden. All in your personal preference I guess. Ill definitely let you know if this ends up as a win or a fail :)

[Piute]

          Over 10,000 views
    I suppose you got rid of the one you had for a dual disc.
      Or did your bike only have 1

[shinyribs]

This bike was stock was a single disc and this is the stock MC. I found a chart for sizing these things. I need to go find it....

Here's that chart

[shinyribs]

Heres what i found out researching this stuff lately:

Master cylinder bore:
69-76 K-         14mm
77-78 K-         ?
75-76 F&F1-    14mm
77-78 F2/3-     17mm
76 A-              14mm
77-78 A-         ?
Caliper piston:
69-76 K-        38mm
77-78 K-        42mm
75-76 F/F1-    42mm front     ?-rear
77-78 F2/3-    (2) 38mm front- (1) 38mm rear
76-78 A-        42mm  

[shinyribs]

So my bike

Single disc-42mm piston / 14mm mc bore=     8.58 ratio       which should be very wooden (I agree)
Dual disc-  (2)42mm piston/14mm mc bore=   17.15 ratio     fingers crossed for less wooden

Piute's fancy F

Dual disc- (2) 38mm piston/ 17mm mc bore= about 11 ratio  

Who knows,really Maybe I'll find out this weekend...

[shinyribs]

Here's something I found interesting. My new pads are EBC HH pads. My old pads were supposedly Honda replacement pads.I always wondered why there was so much unused area on my rotors. I think I found out my. That's alot of surface area missing off those "Honda" pads.

[Hoosier Daddy]

  Perforated Bovine!
I would have never thought there would be that much difference in friction material on the EBC pad. ,disregaurding the taper on the sides, that OEM pad has much more at the top.
Suppose it might be the olive trick (Airline saved millions and beat bankruptcy by eliminating ONE olive from every salad served) so if EBC cuts 3% of the friction material at the top they save big after millions of pads.

[shinyribs]

Oops,I shoulda been more clear. The orange pad on the left is the EBC.

So I finally got my piston made.


The dual discs did not perform well with the stock 14mm m/c at all! I wouldn't even leave the driveway with it. At full lock the lever was only 1/2'' away from the grip. Not leaving any room for your fingers. So I stole a 5/8'' Nissin on Hackjob to see what it would do.


 Perfect! Nice firm lever with plenty of modulation. Not wooden or dead at all. I can roll on the throttle at 70 mph and pull the front brake lever with one finger and just lock and push the front tire  Finally,I have brakes! But I dont know of its the compound of the sintered pads or what,but there's a lag time in the braking. Nothing severe,just noticeable. I think maybe it has to do with heat going into the pad. At low speeds (50mph or less) when I get on the brake it feels like the brakes dont really ''catch'' until after a few revolutions or so.Like they gotta heat up. At higher speeds (100 mph+) they are instant. Seems heat related to me,but I dunno.

Anyway,I now have mismatched controls and have to go do something about that.

[rich]

I was going to recommend an aftermarket master-cylinder for an early goldwing like I got of ebay, but they're all 14MM.

I like the look of the controls from hackjob. Maybe you could find a matching clutch perch or a complete set like these from ebay:

[shinyribs]

Thanks for the Rich. ou know,that's almost exactly what Ive got,too! My m/c is a zx6 piece with those levers you mentioned and the clutch perch is off the same bike. '01 IIRC. I really wanted to resist running modern looking things on this bike to preserve the old look of it,but over the past two days of riding I've fell in  love with the adjustable 2 finger levers. They are fantastic! When I get in tomorrow I'm gonna rob the rest of the hand controls off hackjob and put them on this bike.Hackjob is on hold anyway....they wont be missed.

[Hoosier Daddy]

If you want to keep the old style lever, Randakk sell this in 5/8" bore as well as the 14mm here Randakks upgraded front master cylinder

[shinyribs]

Hey! Good find Hoosier! Thanks man. I might do that in the future. I went ahead and swapped out my control housings (didnt want to pull the wires outta the bars) and I gotta admit the modern stuff really looks better on this bike than I thought it would. I do miss my original polished housings,though. I appreciate the link bud.

I need to pick up some fork oil and change that. All the cables are freshly lubed,got a fresh tire out back,chain got scrubbed and oiled and fresh oil and filter for the engine. Once I get the fork oil changed I'll be set and ready to rock for the summer. No wrenching,just riding

I got another pair of the grips that Randakk sells. My bud gets them local for $11 a pair Sorry Randakk. I've yet to ride with them or the new clutch lever yet. The lever feels like it has alot better leverage vs the stock setup. I think I'm gonna like this new setup.Not overly happy with the obnoxiousness of the clutch cable,though.I wish someone made a clutch perch with the cable exiting right at the bars. It'd really clean things up. I guess I could always fab up a hydraulic deal....

[shinyribs]

Ok,the Pro Grips (714's,I think they're called) are awesome.Love 'em! Clutch effort using the Ninja clutch perch is effortless. This bike has heavy EBC clutch springs and two-fingering the clutch would get tiresome at times. I now just use one finger most of the time. In heavy traffic I use two. You need one of these. And the adjustable levers kick @$$.No more stretching your fingers reaching for levers.They are right at your finger tips now. As much as I love the old stuff,modern advances do have their merit.


Now,because I don't have enough on my plate already.....time for rear sets I got a long ride in Saturday and kept finding myself wishing i could kick my feet further back. I picked up some stainless steel and brass round stock from the recycling company down the road for $20 and went to work.

All I have so far is the foot rests. Knurled them and cuts some grooves for some o-rings. Sorta for looks,sorta for traction. We'll see how long they hold up.I really should be working on my other bike....

[Hoosier Daddy]

You are always a step ahead of me!
I planned on similar pes, round stock machined grooves for o-rings. There is also the "Pegs" off from BMX Bicycles. That being said are you going to whittle out your own levers?
these seem easy enough...

 

Linkage and brake arms and shift arms as well as other assorted part can be had individaully from www.fastfromthepast.com   Rearset Parts