Front brake caliper piston

[andy_c101]

Mate, sorry to hear bout the sheared bleed nipple.
Not heard about 'acid removal'
- I recently had a sump screw shear off, boy did I curse. I never had to fix one before. I used a dremel to dress the sheared screw, carefully drilled out 2mm,3mm using black n decker & 'easy-out' (drills & easy out from ScrewFix, &plenty of 3-in-2 penetrating oil. It does work.
Good luck whatever route you choose.
Andy C

[Seamus]

I may be wrong, but I seem to recall something on the US site regarding this. Does not sound right as aluminium would be more reactive than iron to acids/alkalies, but will have to do a search and find out a bit more.

Hate to say this but good luck with your nipple   

[Bryanj]

If getting the nipple out totally wrecks the threads do not panic but PM me and i will give you a link to a repair kit costing

[florence]

That is kind of you Bryan but I have ordered another banjo bolt with a bleed nipple in the top which solves the problem very well.  This is in fact what I had already been using for the last twelve years and it was that bleed nipple which had eventually frozen in.

However, I put the chemical removal thing up for info really for people who want to keep their caliper original.  A guy called Steve at Piston Broke Engineering in Bristol offers the service and he seems to be very confident about it.  He did some excellent work for me a few years ago on my Indian and I trust him greatly.

I think it should be pointed out that trying to drill out a bleed nipple is rather difficult as you cannot be sure you will not to run into the base where the nipple seals into the caliper.  Obviously, if this seal is compromised the caliper could become unsafe.  The whole idea make me very nervous.  At least if you leave the remains of the nipple in the caliper it isn't going anywhere and the banjo bolt/nipple option works brilliantly and, I think, is easier to bleed.

[Seamus]

Off topic, but

Be interested to see a picture of the Indian.

Cheers

Seamus

[florence]

Sorry, I don't have it anymore.  It was a  1946 Scout 741 military bike which I rebuilt for a friend.  It was rather strange, having a foot operated clutch, hand gear change and throttle on the left handle bar.  I had it bored out to 850cc which was a massive job but worked well; we took about half an inch out of the liner walls. Steve at Piston Broke is a genius, he also did the rebore on my 500/4 back in 1995.  He said he was going to bore it slightly tighter than Honda recommend and that if I ran it in very carefully I would get more miles out of it.  He was right, fifteen years later and it still doesn't burn a drop of oil.

I don't have any photographs of the Indian, in fact, thinking about it, I don't have many photographs of my bikes past or present.  I'm not really a photography person.  I had to bribe my son to take the picture of my 500 in the avatar.  I did do a before and after photograph of the cb500 when I built it but I don't have a scanner so can't publish it. 

[Bryanj]

For those interested I found the post again on the US site its:-

http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?topic=13965.0

Since saying i havent put one under pressure i have used 2 of them on my Pug 405 estate calipers and they work perfik