Cardboard brakes on a 00 pointy

[jambo]

First off take the brake lever off and clean it up. There is often dirt and crud on the master cylinder or lever and this gives a nasty feel. Cleaning this up with a rag and some WD40, and then lubing with some engine oil can work wonders.

Air will not get into a system through rubber lines unless there is a fault with the brake system. Water is slowly absorbed by the brake fluid over time though, and this makes it visually darker. It also leads to brake fade under hard braking. Braided lines will have very little impact on this.

My next thoughts if the brake lever doesn't help would be the caliper sliding pins. Having pistons on one side only, when you use the brakes the whole caliper moves on two large pins to centre it. These should be cleaned and greased using red rubber grease to protect the rubber boots protecting these pins.

Jambo.

Originally Posted by jambo

First off take the brake lever off and clean it up. There is often dirt and crud on the master cylinder or lever and this gives a nasty feel. Cleaning this up with a rag and some WD40, and then lubing with some engine oil can work wonders.

This makes sense. When trying it in the garden (with the engine off) you could hear a noise coming from the lever when feeling the problem. A few big squezes and the noise was gone, and the brake lever was smoth. I'll try cleaning it before going to the test ride.

Originally Posted by jambo

Air will not get into a system through rubber lines unless there is a fault with the brake system. Water is slowly absorbed by the brake fluid over time though, and this makes it visually darker. It also leads to brake fade under hard braking. Braided lines will have very little impact on this.

Also makes sense, the fluid looks quite dark through the resevoir. Oneof the reasons I was thinking it could be the fluid

Originally Posted by jambo

My next thoughts if the brake lever doesn't help would be the caliper sliding pins. Having pistons on one side only, when you use the brakes the whole caliper moves on two large pins to centre it. These should be cleaned and greased using red rubber grease to protect the rubber boots protecting these pins.

Guess I'll have to buy some grease for this and give this a try sometime over the coming weeks. Just hope I don't have to pay to have them dismatled...

Thanks,
Stu