Mileage: 29,469
Maintenance Summary:
- Installed New Front Brake Master Cylinder (14mm)
- Shindy 17-652B
- Replaced fluid Prestone DOT-4
- Bled brake
The eBay special $18 direct-from-China master cylinder is off the bike after only 15 miles. The quality of the part was so poor that I didn’t want to continue to trust my life to it. The Shindy set me back almost $140.
I was pleasantly surprised that the braking improved a bit with the Shindy. While not a huge improvement, it is better. I’m not sure why it’s better as it’s not obvious that the Shindy has any more mechanical advantage — lever lengths are similar — and both pistons are spec’d at 14mm.
Installation was easy, as expected. The brake wiring, mirror and brake line/banjo bolt swapped over without any problems. I did have to rotate the hose nipple on top of the master cylinder to allow the hose to reach the reservoir without kinking.
The only problem that I ran into was with the initial brake bleed. I think it was probably air in the hose going to the reservoir that prevented me from pumping the brake to bleed the system; brake fluid simply wasn’t getting to the cylinder. I ended up pulling a vacuum at the caliper to get things started. After that I was able to complete the bleed using the brake-pump method.