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Great job Sev! I have stainless steel lines on my XJ and it REALLY made a huge difference in stopping power. I full recommend doing this to any bike out there.

It will take a day or two on the road to get used to them, but after that you'll be fine.

IMHO, the manufacturers should use steel brake lines on the bikes from the factory, forget the rubber ones!

Mike

CrazyCam wrote:In terms of the character of the bike, I came across part of a write-up on the Hornet from a Pommie bike mag, which sums up the beast rather nicely. "....Officially, this is a bike that will potter. It will trickle around fluidly, whirring away happily, turning in easily, stopping gently....... But, let's be honest, it hates it. And in a voice as clear and authoritative as the devils in Charlie Manson's head, it screams 'Ride me like you're made of Kevlar, and have spent all morning drinking cider mixed with cheap cough syrup'. So you do."

Ran into this a while back and had to laugh, I like how well it sums things up.

Nice job on the brake lines Sev. When I swapped the front line I also ran into the little issue of that rubber grommet that sits in the metal bracket thing. I just ran a slice of knife down the grommet and removed it from the original rubber line and then placed it back in the bracket. It wasn't completely snug around the new line, but the grommet already had bracket grooves so it stays put between the three parts.

Sevulturus wrote:

CrazyCam wrote:In terms of the character of the bike, I came across part of a write-up on the Hornet from a Pommie bike mag, which sums up the beast rather nicely. "....Officially, this is a bike that will potter. It will trickle around fluidly, whirring away happily, turning in easily, stopping gently....... But, let's be honest, it hates it. And in a voice as clear and authoritative as the devils in Charlie Manson's head, it screams 'Ride me like you're made of Kevlar, and have spent all morning drinking cider mixed with cheap cough syrup'. So you do."

Ran into this a while back and had to laugh, I like how well it sums things up.

That's a great quote.

As for the pulling to one side while braking, I've never noticed that with my bike. Even doing hard braking, two-up, it tracks perfectly straight. I'd blame it on the bars more than the metal crossover. The only reason why the crossover would cause a braking imbalance is if one side had air in it while the other didn't. Since you bleed your brakes annually (right?), that should have been a non-issue.

Also, why do the rear brake line? If/when I do the one on my Hornet, it will get an OEM line because I don't need the rear brake any more sensitive for my ham-fisted (footed?) control.

Anyways, when there's no snow on the ground, post up how awesome they are. It's snowing here, too, and it's killing me.

Skier wrote: Also, why do the rear brake line? If/when I do the one on my Hornet, it will get an OEM line because I don't need the rear brake any more sensitive for my ham-fisted (footed?) control.

My thoughts on mine too. Only reason would be for protection on the line but I'm not out offroad in rough areas where it would even be possible to snag.

Hey Sev. I know it might seem like a stupid question, but did you buy your own tools for the class? I tried to take an intro to automotive class here at my school, and they wanted us to buy a $2K set of tools just for that class... So I'm curious if you bought your own, or were supplied...
Wrider

Brake lines came as a full set of three, so I got all of them for the same price. If you have it, you might as well use it right? Yeah, I bled them manually, but they'd never been done before so it's possible there was some air in there anyways. My handlebars also came 3/4" to far to the right from the shop (they weren't mounted evenly) so that might have altered the way it felt too. I guess we'll see how the rear SS works. I've heard good things, so I just need the friggin snow to melt so I can test it.

As for tools, no there's a complete set, "set up," for us. A toolbox is split between two people, the guy I'm sharing with is a 65 year old retired teacher. He's a lot of fun to talk to and hang around with plus he's got so many stories that there's never a dull moment. Of course not every institution will be the same. NAIT Fairview is pretty good about that in general, all kinds of automotive and heavy equipment classes and all have tools supplied. That might get rolled into tuition, though it would be spread across 30 years or so.

Friday I literally had nothing I was required to do in class. I'd finished all of my work orders for the week on Thursday. We'd made good progress on Endo's streetfighter to the point that he wasn't willing to do any more work on it up in Fairview, bike is running well now so he's basically getting down to cosmetic work he wants to do at home.

I'd already installed my braided lines, and they work well (no squishyness) so I wheeled my bike outside (-15 C) and washed it down.

When I rolled it back inside I discovered that my brakes had gone a little spongy, lol ice cold water on steel brake lines will do that. But a couple pumps plus some warm air fixed that up.

I then spent the rest of the day applying coats of wax to my bike. Why? Because it made me look busy, and it made the bike look nice. She's all ready to head home now. I think I put 6 coats on between 10 and lunch.

So I'm sitting in class right now with Brad (instructor) staring over my shoulder telling me that I shouldn't have posted my license plate because I'm now running illegal brake lines. Weeee. Oh well, some you win, some you lose. Guess I'll have to edit all my pictures.

Why are they illegal?