Mr. Marburger,
I am the proud owner of a 1995 R100RT just like yours. I use your website as a reference for maintenance and upgrades. It is invaluable, thank you. My question to you is: do the separate brake lines you installed to the front calipers allow you to remove the front wheel without opening the brake hydraulic system? Can the calipers be unbolted and moved out of the way and allow the front wheel to be rolled forward and out?
It's winter maintenance time here in Minnesota, and my list includes new steering head bearings and a new timing chain. The front wheel will have to come off for these jobs. I hope your reply will be useful to other dual disk airhead owners.
Andy
I'm obviously not as good looking or as experienced as Scot, but we do use very similar brake hose modifications. I believe your answer is going to be that all the flexible lines remain flexible. And therefore the ability to remove the calipers is somewhat enhanced when the newer hoses are fitted becasue there are fewer rigid steel brake lines. In fact, to improve bleeding and reduce air bubble entrapment, all the steel lines should be replaced by flexible lines.
If you are doing Scot's brake line conversion, you may wish to study mine as a simpler and cheaper solution. I'm NOT saying mine is better. I'm simply saying when you see it done different ways, then you may get insights as to how to do it a third way that answers all YOUR needs even better than our solutions. So you've got to remember... when you order your own brake lines then any configuration is possible. And they ALL stop the bike much better than using the OEM rubber brake hoses.
There is one rule to follow though, no matter which brake lines you're using..... Never, ever allow the caliper to hang by the brake hose !! Always take a cable tie, piece of mechanic's wire, or a coat hanger and fully support the weight of the caliper !
► On my bike I ordered a single hose from Fragola. This hose was 41" long and ran all the way from the master cyl down to the LH brake caliper. It had a factory made-on 10mm banjo on the caliper end, and I used a straight screw-in 10mm banjo at the master cyl end. (If I did this task again, I would run my hose to the RH caliper, thereby saving about 10" of hose and a lot of routing headaches. This design requires moving the bleed nipple to the LH caliper.) Then the LH and RH calipers are connected with the stock U-shaped steel brake line.
I re-filled my system using a $8 hand-pump oil can, filled with brake fluid. Using a 2" length of battery breather hose, the can was connected to the single (open) bleed nipple. Pumping fluid into the bottom and forcing it upward allowed a more natural way for air to rise and escape from the system. It progressed very quickly and the job (with final filling and bleeding) was completed in about 15 minutes.
Hope this helps !
Owning an old Airhead is easy.
Keeping an old Airhead running great is the true test.
Thanks for your reply and photos. I particularly like the banjo fitting at the caliper, very clean. And your hydraulic fluid refill procedure is pure genius.
Scot replaced all of the brake lines, see http://www.gunsmoke.com/motorcycling/r100rt/brakeLines/index.html. He ran a line from the master cylinder to a T at the top of the oil cooler and then individual SS braided lines to the calipers, eliminating the steel brake tube running between the calipers. I wanted to know if that setup allowed him to unbolt the calipers, move them aside, and then remove the front wheel with the flexible brake lines still connected to the calipers. If so, the front fork assembly could be removed without disturbing the fork tube alignment. The lower triple tree clamp and the fork brace on the sliders could remain secure. I spent 3 weeks last spring aligning my fork tubes. I managed to achieve 0.000" error in parallel and less than 0.001" in planer and eliminated some nasty stiction issues. New steering head bearings are in my future. And allowing the front wheel to be removed without opening the brake hydraulic system would make a lot of maintenance on the front of the bike easier, especially with the RT full fairing. I am hoping to get an experienced yea or nay (or even a meh) from the collected wisdom of this forum.
Andy
Unless I'm missing something, I believe that question was already answered.
I'm obviously not as good looking or as experienced as Scot, but we do use very similar brake hose modifications. I believe your answer is going to be that all the flexible lines remain flexible. And therefore the ability to remove the calipers is somewhat enhanced when the newer hoses are fitted becasue there are fewer rigid steel brake lines.
How can a caliper become more constrained, when the hoses attaching it have become more flexible ?
Owning an old Airhead is easy.
Keeping an old Airhead running great is the true test.
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