My Ramblings

So, I asked a friend at work about the problems changing gears, and he told me to be gentle and not to try to force the gear lever as it could bend the gear selector arms inside the gearbox. wow, my first thought was to try brute force, so I'm glad I asked before steaming ahead. So, the idea is to gently work all of the gear selector arm and gears until they are all free. How hard can it be ? So, I put the Z750 up on a paddock stand with its exhausts pointing out of the garage door. Fire up the engine and let it warm up for a bit. Now to try the gears. First is no problem. Second was okay too, so next if third, the gear I couldn't get into during my test ride. At this point I would have crossed my fingers, but my right hand was holding the front brake on, and the left was holding the clutch. maybe I should have crossed my eyes instead. Anyway here goes, foot under gear lever and lift. There was a clunk and the bike was in third gear. I must be dreaming, but if I am, I...

Okay, so we have brakes, we have lights, we have forks. Next up is a quick test ride round the block. so I put my helmet on, wheeled the bike out of the garage and fired it up. I put it into first and pulled gently away. okay so far. I tried the brakes just to make sure they wouldn't explode when I first used them (or at least for them to explode at slow speed). The brakes work. woohoo !! okay corner coming up, oh. steering is a bit of a challenge, but I made it around the corner. Okay now to try second gear, clutch in, gear lever up.... and second gear (that shocked me, but I'm getting a bit of a pessimist with this bike now) okay, trundle down the road and another corner coming up. I have to fight the bike round the corners, and I'm not sure if that's something I've done when changing the forks. Or it could just be the tyre pressure (which I should've checked before taking the bike onto the road!). okay, next gear. Clutch in, gear lever... oh, the ge...

Okay, the new vacuum brake bleed kit has arrived. Time to try it out. The kit is quite easy to put together. there is a diagram of how to attach the vacuum pump to the collection jar, and all of the pipes go on easily enough (but not so easy that they'll pop off in use). okay, so vacuum connected to one side, other side connected to bleed nipple. pump up the vacuum pressure, then open the bleed nipple. lots of bubbles and some fluid coming through, great. I had to keep an eye on the master reservoir to make sure it had enough fluid in it, but that's not too bad to do. so I keep pumping to keep the vacuum pressure, open the bleed nipple to let some air and fluid out, and keep an eye on the reservoir, topping up as necessary. After a while fluid stopped coming through to the jar. it seemed as though it was just air coming through. A closer look at the bleed nipple and I could see that there was air getting into the kit's tube even when the nipple was closed, so it...

Right, new braided brake hoses have arrived, so all I have to do is drain the brake fluid, replace the hoses and bleed new fluid through again. The new hoses went on without a hitch. the kit I ordered (from HEL) had everything it needed; new banjo bolts and crush washers as well as the hoses. It made everything simple. So I put it all back together, fill up the master reservoir. brake bleed hose onto the nearest calipers bleed nipple and start slowly pumping the brake lever. As I pump the brake lever, lots and lots of bubble appear in the reservoir. After about an hour of pumping the brake lever (and opening and closing the bleed nipple) I'm getting nowhere. Either this is going to take days, or I'm doing something wrong. My vote; I'm doing something wrong. So "To the Internet". very few people drain the brake system and then fill up from scratch. Or at least very few post about it. There are some people who use a syringe and push the fluid up from the bl...