If There's Any Doubt, There Is No Doubt. "Ronin"

Great film, and that line makes perfect sense.

It's a restoration. The idea is to use as many of the original parts as possible. You clean, repair and do what you need to make them good again. That's what it's all about.

But this is Brakes!

If you're at all worried about the condition of your brake lines, fit new. Don't hope for the best. I'm going to clean the GSX hoses up and see how they look. They're old and, once fitted to the bike, will be checked under pressure. Any bulges or leaks and they're heading for the bin, but for now we work with what we've got.

Back in the day, they used to fit these springs to protect the hoses. Nowadays it seems they're deemed unnecessary, and they certainly look ugly when this rusty, but I had a plan.

First, I gave the rubber hoses a quick clean up with Ajax. I used the lemon fragrance because of its phenomenal braking properties. 
(This is a lie, it's just what was in the cupboard.)

Next I masked up the rubber where it meets the unions. This is so I can use a wire wheel to clean up the steel without damaging the rubber itself.

Not a bad effort. 

Looking a hell of a lot better than before.

But back to the rusty spring! I now masked the section underneath the spring so I could also rub it on the wire wheel. Compressing the spring seemed to be the best way.

Sure enough, most of the rust soon disappeared. Of course, it'll come straight back so what to do?

Leaving the masking tape on, I gave it a quick wipe with brake clean, masked the union and sprayed it with black enamel. It worked a treat. 

It actually looks great and is in keeping with the rest of the bike. With front calipers now painted, I'll be rebuilding them soon and the braking system will be pretty much finished. 

Sneak peek at the front calipers.
I only took a few pics of the front calipers because of the similarity with the rear caliper rebuild. But these few of the strip down just goes to show how bad they actually were. 

Expanded rubber from fork oil/brake fluid contamination.

Piston in reasonably good shape, but new ones are included in the repair kits so will be replaced as per.

Years of crud build-up around the seals. This all helps to make your calipers sticky, or eventually seize.

The left one wasn't contaminated, but look how bad the seal is. The piston was partially seized up and this was well overdue for a rebuild.

Paint stripper applied.

HATE HATE HATE getting paint off! 

More soon.