The gearbox

The gearbox oil was last changed about 400 miles ago, and about 20 years!! So despite looking reasonably clean I drain it out for replacement. I drain out over 800ml.

The oil plug is also relatively clean.

Cleaned off and ready to reinsert!

On the advice of the tuning works, I go for Silkolene light gear oil, and fill it to the correct 700ml measure.

However after consulting the manual, it looks like Medium gear oil would be the correct choice! As a result I shall probably drain this out and replace with medium soon!!

From reading the Silkolene data sheets, Gear oil ‘medium’ is the equivalent weight to engine oil SAE 20W/50 as called out in the manual. Gear oil ‘light’ is a 10W/40.

The original crush washer was clearly reused previously and crushed to nothing! I fit a new washer to the correct torque setting.

Edit:

Gear oil light I feel is too thin, so it has been replaced with medium, a mere 40 miles later!!

Black, round, Pirelli’s…

After 20 years it’s time for the RS and the original fitment Dunlops to part ways…it’s an Italian bike, so Italian tyres will be going on this time…in the words of Juha Kankunnen, I have opted for black, round Pirellis. Diablo Rosso III’s to be precise, which are my favoured road tyre of the moment.

The original Dunlops still rode well, however the history showed the rear one had been plugged, and so it was, on removal the plug was still there!

Of course, while the wheels are off it would be rude not to inspect the front calipers and pads and also deep clean the swingarm area.

There’s not much wrong with the calipers. I have bought a replacement Brembo caliper seal kit but this will have to wait a bit longer, along with the new front brake master cylinder as I’m itching to get this on the road now. For today it’s just a clean up of the pads/gubbins and clean and regrease the pistons.

The rear comes up nice and shiny…

Make it stop!!

Not just talking about the expense 😉 … after the rear brake issues I didn’t want to take any chances. This came up available so I jumped on it. The perfect opportunity to overhaul the front brake setup.

Out with the old and on with the new master cylinder and lever setup.

The calipers meanwhile had a full overhaul with new seals…take 1!

Great service form Brake Masters for the supply of the seals.

Splitting the halves…

The hex heads of the bolts weren’t very willing to budge…some drilling out required!!

Pretty clean still after 2.5k miles and 24 years…

Cleaner still…

After disassembly

All laid out…

The replacement seals were a bit baggy! I fitted them anyway to see but they weren’t right. An email to the supplier and he sent new ones out straight away, excellent service.

Replacement seals fitted no problems…

New fittings to replace the drilled out hexes. Turns out these use low profile hex heads, hard to find so I ordered Pro Bolt ones in stainless steel.

Turns out the replacement hex bolts couldn’t take the torque without the hex head rounding. Copy of the message sent to Pro Bolt regarding these bolts…

These were duly replaced with the Ti versions. Nevertheless, they still felt like the hex’s were giving around 21NM. I decided to stick with 21NM and mark the bolts to monitor. I came to the conclusion that 25nm is too much for these low profile hexes.

Ti bolts look great fitted…

That’s the braking system fully overhauled now and ready for action 🙂