With both my bikes off the road due to briefly meeting a diesel spill on one, and the fairly recently fitted exhaust falling off the other, a good friend of mine came to my rescue and lent me their SV650, very decent of them I thought. However the current cloud of bad luck had not fully rained itself dry!
I had an interview to do on Monday for my radio show, and needed to borrow a Microphone to do the interview with, another good friend came to my rescue and offered me theirs, I just had to come and get it, SWEET!
So off I go on my friends SV650 from Swindon to Thatcham, no worries, M4 was clear and fecking cold! Pushed the bike onto my friends driveway, went inside for a cup of tea and some rather nice biscuits!
When I left, it was pointed out I had a nail in the rear tyre, which thankfully turned out not to be a nail at all, but a much sharper shard of metal instead. This had made a nice hole in the tyre BETWEEN the tread, but had not actually punctured it. Right take it nice and easy on the way home, and get that checked out the next day, no problems!
Yeah, I know, I spoke too soon there, as I came to wheel the bike back out of the garden it quickly became apparent that one or maybe both of the front brakes had seized on, so after some discussions with the AA and a call to the bikes owner that I really didn't want to make, taking into consideration my recent bad luck with my bikes, I manage to get the bike back to my place, on a low loader, and wouldn't you know it, the brakes had unsiezed on the truck, probably due to the movement, so easily pushed the bike into it's parking space.
The next day I go out for my morning smoke and decide to see how the brakes feel today, alas the unsiezing of the night before had been replaced with the resiezing in the morning, not that I can complain about that, it was a cold morning and to be honest parts of me felt like they had seized up also, so I could forgive the bike for that much at least!
This morning the weather is quite mild, and no real wind adding to the chill factor, result! I can go and check these brakes out. Now I'm not a skilled mechanic, so I take a bit of time to look for info on the web about how to deal with this problem, and found a handy little 'how to' on a SV650 forum, sweet! Simple enough and easy to follow! The right hand calliper, no worries, came off a treat, cleaned up nice, pads back in and back on the bike no problems!
Yeah spoke to soon again! left hand calliper, a bit harder to get off the disc, so I'm guessing it's probably only the left calliper that's locking the wheel, but it comes of, run through the same procedure as the other calliper, more crap on this one and not as easy to clean, but the pistons are free and can be compressed back fairly easily, refit calliper, and start to gently pump the brake.
Yup you've probably guessed the outcome...........................................
The fecking fuel tank explodes!!!!!!!!!!
No it didn't really, what really happened as you have probably guessed, is the left calliper just relocked back onto the disc!
I'm wondering if I should just take both the callipers off and get them professionally cleaned, and then refit them, I'm guessing I would need some new seals for this. I'm not sure how difficult a job this is to strip and rebuild callipers, never done it before, and as this is a friend’s bike, I would like to make sure it is done properly before I return it to them.
Also if it is required that the callipers come off for a good clean and refitting, I am guessing it would also make sense to upgrade the rubber hoses for braided ones at the same time?
