Clutch & brake fluid change

Good day all


I may not be a very skilled mechanic, but I'm not alone. So the following may be useful, even for a "not complicated, even for a rookie" job.
 
First stop: You Tube. As many "how to" clips as you want. Good tips. Cover the bike with rags and arrange a paper towel under the reservoir to do what a baby's bib does.

What fluid? Is there really a difference between car and motorcycle brake fluid? Google inquiries draw the same result again and again: none at all, it's pure marketing. 

So I buy a 500 ml bottle of Engen (= Petronas, = Mobil) DOT 4 brake fluid for AU$ 7.

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The anatomy of a fluid change is: pump and hold the lever, loosen the bleed nipple nut, tighten the nut, release the lever. 

Bleeding the brakes is a cinch. Wipe the reservoirs clean before starting. Start with the brake with the greatest length of plumbing, being the front left. Then front right. The rear is accessed by removing the bodywork the reservoir hides behind. 

Everything goes as the book, or video, said it would. 

Replace the reservoir covers, screw down gently (don't tighten like a gorilla), wipe clean again. 

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Then, the clutch. This one's a bit trickier. 

Firstly, where do we even find the nipple? Thanks to Paul for the assist.  



Removing the reservoir cover reveals, as the video warned, the rubber hose has blackened the fluid. Watching the used fluid drain into the receptacle gives an idea of what octopus ink must look like.

But the learning starts. 

The brake side was as easy as pie. 

On  the clutch side, however, pumping the clutch lever creates a miniature fountain of brake fluid... all over the bike.

 
 
Fortunately the rags and paper towel save the bike. 

But the lesson is: keeping the reservoir uncovered for easy visibility isn't such a good idea.

Simply rest the cover on the reservoir. Just rest it; the fountain of fluid isn't strong enough to lift the cover so there's no need to screw it down.

As with the brakes, just keep topping up the reservoir and releasing old fluid until the fluid exiting the bleed nipple is clear.  

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Now then. Colour.

Good fluid is colourless, like water.

Bad fluid isn't, and it it has any colour at all, it's bad fluid.

The brake side was the colour of pale urine. 

On the clutch side, the fluid is not yellow, but black. It picks up the rubber hose's black and transfers it to the fluid. 

Once changed, both fluids are completely colourless.

Good and clean and fresh (a South African detergent commercial's jingle).

Test ride time.




Clutch: Before (black); After (clear).

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Rolling the Bandit onto the driveway I check for the umpteenth time covers are securely on the reservoirs and the levers prove stiff when pumped.  Then I take off down a steep hill, keeping it slow enough to stop on one brake if the other fails. And slow enough to allow for South African drivers.

Intersection after intersection, I brake more sharply than necessary. The Bandit's brakes are now like new. Previously, a half-pull would stop the bike without any theatre. Now, as soon as the fluid starts compressing, that bike stops.

Impress-sive!

The clutch feels firm and springy. Like the brakes, the clutch had been spongy. Now it feels new.

Head out onto the highway (cue Steppenwolf), merge into the right pair of lanes and give it some wrist.

Further along this road on my recent road trip I'd had a meeting with the long arm of the law. That long arm had long fingers that got into my wallet. At this part the problem is that not only is the highway peppered with cameras but the gantries that mark the failed electronic tolling attempt have been repurposed as average-speed cameras, and I'm riding with a number plate the size of a drive-in movie screen.

But I know where the cameras are. So much of the time I keep it down, but where the unmonitored strip starts, the Suzuki seems to break free of its leash. 

Because I actually want to brake, I ride twice as hard as usual, then stab at the brakes like a beginner rider with his first big bike. Driver after driver sees the Bandit headlight suddenly enlarge in his mirror. Metres behind the car I hit brakes and the Bandit scrubs speed instantly. 

The clutch also needs testing. Abandoning my normally smooth and lazy style for a boy-racer impersonation, I click up and down through the gears to try the clutch out. It's actually quite fun to ride the normally torque-uber-alles Bandit this way. 

But the party dampens.

Not an incident, and not a cop. Simply rain. 

I'd set out playing Weather Roulette, and the gamble isn't working. 

The clouds I reckoned will hold out for another half hour don't, and the buggers dump on me.

If it's been raining for the last half hour the road isn't too bad, but those first few minutes of rainfall are deadly. I have to bring the speed right down.

South African rain is very localized. You can ride through a kilometre of bucketing rain and abruptly emerge onto bone dry tarmac. Thus the Van Buuren St off ramp gives my already-dry tyres a chance to again test my newly-serviced anchors. And cor, don't she stop.

There's nothing more satisfying (with your clothes on) than doing a job and getting it right. The Bandit's previously-spongy brakes feel like new. Ditto the clutch which now feels stiff, springy, new. 

And as much as I try to deny it, I know what my next project is going to be.

Oh shyte, must I...?

 

  Pic: Google