So if your anything like me then you probably removed your entire front brake system and then began wondering how to remove the brake pad from the front caliper. Well, what we should have done is remove the caliper before bleeding the brakes and use the brake fluid to push the pad with its own piston.

No worries we can still do that.

Here is my make shift contraption for pushing out that brake pad. All I did was reconnect one end of the lower hose to the master cylinder and the other end to the caliper, put a few ounces of brake fluid in the reservoir and squeezed the brake lever. The pad eventually is pushed out by the piston.

Done.

Gross.

Time to clean up the caliper and remove 35 years of gunk from around the piston.

Outer caliper.

After moderate sanding and automotive primer.

Light sanding, two coats of primer, two coats of flat black enamel, six hours in the Texas sun.

Organic.

After the winter break I noticed that the front brake felt squishy and had lost some of its stopping power. I didn’t think much of it, I simply bled the brakes, added more brake fluid and thought that would fix the problem. A few days later on one of my morning rides, I noticed brake fluid leaking onto my right hand from the master cylinder, upon further inspection I also noticed that my brake pad was well beyond worn, so I decided to take the whole thing apart, paint the calipers, replace the pads, and get some shiny new steel braided brake hoses.

Here we go:

This is my only method for draining the brake fluid since my bleeder screw broke off last summer. I had to remove the metal brake line that connects to the outer caliper, stick it in a plastic bottle, and squeeze the brake lever till it all squirted out.

The outer caliper looks pretty rough. You can see the busted bleeder screw in this pic. This was easy enough to remove, just unscrew the two bolts.

Yuck, crusty and caked on filth. These bolts can’t be salvaged.

I think I’m going to barf.
Notice the brake pad is next to nothing. I feel embarrassed that I was riding it like this for so long and didn’t notice.

The original paint is long gone.

Here is a shot after about a minutes worth of sanding.

Here is a shot after I removed the lower brake hose.

The lower hose is also not salvageable.

At this point it doesn’t matter but the metal brake line is never coming off that rubber hose, its stripped to hell and frozen solid.

I’m re-using the banjo bolts even though they look a bit rusty and old, purchasing a new set would be too expensive.

While I was down there I removed this metal tab that I assume is supposed to hold down cables or hoses.

Much cleaner.

Yuck. The upper hose and banjo bolt are fairly rotten. I should have replace these last year. My suspicion is the rubber housing that sits over the shoulder of the banjo bolt locked in moisture over the years and caused the extreme oxidation. I don’t plan on using the rubber insert when I install my steel braided hoses.

My master cylinder is great physical condition but I may get a modern one or at least one that is built for inclined bars and has a sloped reservoir.

Here is the last banjo bolt on for the upper hose that connects to the pressure switch that activates the brake light. I thought about removing the switch to clean things up but that would mean I would need one long steel braided hose that runs from the master cylinder to the front brake and its too late for that, I’ve already purchased hoses that replace my existing ones.

Garbage. So far, every time I pull a part off I’ve been able to sell it but not this time, these pieces are beyond repair.

Two bolts and outer caliper brake pad.

For the sake of page loading time, I’ll cut this post in half and continue on the next one.

I’m going to get new gauges. I’ve already made up my mind. I need to clean up the front end. That being said, here is my plan:

Remove gauges
Remove gauge bracket
Remove pilot light box
Remove original fork ears (headlight brackets)
Get new sleeker headlight brackets
Get new mini speedo and tach
Maybe get new triple tree and clip-ons
Rebuild front brake system

Not necessarily in that order. In fact, I’ve already removed much of the front brake system (I’ll dedicate an entire post to that later).

Speedo and tach are removed. They’ll be on eBay soon.

Speedo and tach bracket removed.

I’m not sure how my new mini gauges are going to mount so I’ll keep this bracket just in case I have to modify it for the new speedo and tach.

In the past week I have drastically rethought my strategy for my front end. I am no longer keeping my original gauges, however, since I have already purchased LED replacement bulbs (in bulk I might add) and now have no use for them, I still want to review them for those that may end up modifying their lights to LED, plus, I plan on selling my bulk lights in pairs and wanted some photos and footage of them in action.

Here we go:

The LEDs are white, which was the brightest available next to green. They will have a slight blue tint to them when viewed through the green gauge faces.

Fresh from China.

You can see the LED bulb is slightly taller, but the base is the same and the tallness doesn’t produce any ill effects, it easily fits in all the bulb receptacles.

They fit perfectly and do a nice job of illuminating the gauge faces. Check out the videos below.

I never bothered to replace any of the instrument bulbs in the year that I’ve had my CB550, it was never a high priority, but seeing as how I have the time and no other major improvements to make on this cafe racer I may as well start now.

I suppose there are many ways to do this, I just wanted the easiest way to poke inside, so I removed the two little acorn nuts, and unscrewed the speedo cable. The gauge came right apart.

I hadn’t realized how dirty and old they were. It was at this point that I decided I was going to replace these all together with some mini gauges.

Surprisingly, there were actually two bulbs inside the speedo. The inside wasn’t any better looking.

Simple classic design, push in and twist counter-clockwise to remove.

Here is a pic of the bottom of the upper portion of the gauge.

Busted and burned out.

The second bulb wasn’t clear, it had a mirror like finish to it. Is this stock? Does anyone know what the purpose of the chrome bulb is?

I was once again surprised, this time by the sheer weight of it. HEAVY!

The lower portion of the gauge was crusty. You can see the weathered and cracked plastic and the rusted metal. I’m going to replace the bulbs for the time being, in fact, I’m going to replace them with LED bulbs, but ultimately the gauges aren’t going to stay on the bike for very long. I see a shiny new mini speedo and tach in my cafe racer’s future.