[pfranks]

I'm about to pick up an ultrasonic cleaner for when I do my carbs and I was wondering if it's OK to use with the brake calipers. But, I haven't found anybody talking about it one way or the other. And given the importance of brakes, I'm not sure how comfortable I am being a trailblazer on this topic. I can't see any particular reason not to do it, unless the cleaning solution somehow interacts with the brake fluid.

Anyways, I'm going to be replacing my brake lines and brake fluid anyways, making this a great time to give the various parts of the brakes a good, thorough cleaning.

 

[bigbadbass]

I'd give it a whirl.

I'd suggest a simple non-aggressive soap based solution, nothing chemically caustic. Completely disassembling all caliper components, bolted halves pistons/seals to bare condition prior. Beware some pistons are teflon coated (Brembo comes to mind) , I'd not dunk these at all, opting for a hand clean/polish instead.

Give them a quickie 5-10 minute test dunk, inspect and make sure nothing bad happening. Then dunk for longer period as you see needed.

I'd suggest to remove all traces of brake fluid *before* dunking, and when done a complete cleaning, rinsing and extensive drying of any/all components that were put in the US machine.

Is this US a heated machine? Keep the heat down under 100F until you can ascertain full effects.

Prior to reassembly, be prepared to repaint using appropriate product, this being the perfect time.

Good luck, have fun.

 

[pfranks]

I'd give it a whirl.

I'd suggest a simple non-aggressive soap based solution, nothing chemically caustic. Completely disassembling all caliper components, bolted halves pistons/seals to bare condition prior. Beware some pistons are teflon coated (Brembo comes to mind) , I'd not dunk these at all, opting for a hand clean/polish instead.

Give them a quickie 5-10 minute test dunk, inspect and make sure nothing bad happening. Then dunk for longer period as you see needed.

I'd suggest to remove all traces of brake fluid *before* dunking, and when done a complete cleaning, rinsing and extensive drying of any/all components that were put in the US machine.

Is this US a heated machine? Keep the heat down under 100F until you can ascertain full effects.

Prior to reassembly, be prepared to repaint using appropriate product, this being the perfect time.

Good luck, have fun.

The current brakes have about 24k miles on them now, so I'm thinking this would be a good time to give them a complete cleaning inside and out before I reinstall with the new brake lines and fluid. When I've done my pads, it's been a bit of a pain to get the brake dust off some parts of the caliper assembly.


I was planning on using simple green as that seems to be pretty common for use on things like this and seems to be generally safe for most things.



I'll verify that the brakes aren't coated in any particular way, but these are from my Ninja 250r, so I'm guessing they're nothing particularly special in this regard.


I'll try to remember to take some photos of the results in case somebody else wants to do this. But, I'm fairly optimistic that this will work well.

 

[bpe]

Can you take before pictures?

 

[pfranks]

Can you take before pictures?

That's a really good point. I should take those pictures anyways, but I'll be sure to post them. It looks like my brake lines will be coming this Tuesday, so I probably won't get around to doing the work until next weekend at the earliest. Unfortunately, we're in the rainy season now, so it might take awhile just to get a day where it's dry enough to consider doing the work.



I was able to pick up a set of Venhill braided steel brake lines for about $50 each, which is crazy when you consider the price of OEM lines is more or less the same. And they're neither that sexy red color nor are they braided steel. At least not as far as I know.

 

[bpe]

Don't rush it. Take your time and do it good. :wink2:

 

[pfranks]

Don't rush it. Take your time and do it good. :wink2:

If I rush it, I might not be able to stop. :surprise:

 

[pfranks]

Life, waiting for parts and motivation got in the way here. I did learn a few things, first off, the ultrasonic cleaner does a pretty good job of cleaning things, but you really need to completely disassemble them as the fixed shaft can become incredibly hard to remove if any water gets in there. And with an ultrasonic cleaner, water will get in there. Brake fluid being in there doesn't seem to be much of an issue, just get as much out as possible.

I'll probably get the final images and whatnot up pretty soon. Overall, things were relatively good, just make sure to completely disassemble everything and some parts like the bleeder valve may require a bit of manual scrubbing as there can be some white build up on portions.

 

[pfranks]

I just completed the install. The new lines look awesome. The routing on the rear is a bit weird, but should provide more than enough travel for riding. Bonus is that having to route it up above the passenger peg and then back to the brake ensures that people will see my brake lines.

Hopefully, tomorrow, I'll be able to get some pictures of the final install and post the pictures I've been taking. The final result looks really nice and wouldn't be that much effort if I wasn't doing this for the first time.