Braided lines worth it ?

[marcusk]

Hi all I'm back again I have decided to fiiiiiiinnnnaly get my 07 F back on the road.  I took it for a run last week and the brakes are soft the rears are really soft.  It's been sitting for a few years so I thought new lines are in order and I am thinking I will go all out and get hel stainless braided.  They are 120 for the set not sure what stock is worth. 

So the q is has anyone gone braided lines and is it worth it ?

Marc

[user11235813]

I recently put some hel's on as the bike is 5 years old and therefore due for replacement brake lines anyway according to the service manual. HEL lines are cheaper than OEM so why not put on braided. The banjo looks so much neater as well. I just did the front brakes for the moment and while I did notice an improvement, the original hoses still did the job so perhaps the sponginess you speak of is not being caused by the OEM lines.

[twocool]

I ordered some stainless braided line for my other motorcycle, turned out I ordered too long...but just happened to be exactly right for the GS...  Had to get different bolts..(different thread pitch.)

There is a noticeable difference...very "firm" feel on the brake lever..

Got from "coretech"

Cookie

[marcusk]

This is its first set I think being an 07 that's 9 years roughly.  If oem are more than good quality aftermarket with a lifetime warranty I will pull the trigger on the hel lines.

[fetor56]

SS lines are good,however i agree with 11235813 that soft front and really soft rear brakes suggests possible contamination...either by air or water,or other foreign material.
I'm rebuilding a 6 piston Hayabusa Caliper at the moment to use on my GS(thread and review to follow) and was surprised to see a mass of fine particles behind the pistons;that can't help performance.
Charge your new lines with good quality DOT4 fluid,they should feel firm and stop acceptably.

[TQM]

IMHO braided are totally worth it on the front, though not so much on the back. But, as decent braideds are fairly cheap these days, and rubber lines could do with changing at least every decade, I'd swap them out anyway. I have braided on my Bandit, my Ninja, and my XJR and they've really made a difference.

[marcusk]

Ordered.  Front and rear Hel braided lines.  I will get myself some dot 4 fluid and swap them out over the weekend.  Any idea how much fluid I will need to refill everything and bleed ?

Because I am a bit of a trend setter I went all out and got black lines with black fittings.  Almost went red and blue but I thought I would do something different. 

[user11235813]

@marcusk, the 500 ml bottle that you will buy will be plenty enough to completely flush and bleed both lines and you can't use what is left over anyway.

Word of caution one of the bolts on mine was a larger pitch and HEL don't always get that right. They also supplied me which a new stainless steel bleed screw that was the wrong pitch so I used the old one. Check the bolts carefully from memory one of them had a 7 on it and the others were plain, I think the wide pitch was on the front master cylinder.

Also the HEL banjo bolts have oversized 14mm hex heads. I used the HEL recommended torque settings using their supplied copper washers because that seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but I have been a little bit concerned if I should have used the Suzi banjo bolt torque which is a little lower. I'd like to get an opinion on that.

[marcusk]

Thanks for the heads up on the thread pitch.  Did I you have to get new lines ?

As for Torqe settings I have no idea.

[user11235813]

wrong thread. post removed

[Hupjai]

Motorsport is having a sale on these actually.

At that price, how can you say no?

I'll even link you!

http://www.motosport.com/Galfer-Front-with-FREE-Rear-Brake-Line-Kit?segment=badger-street&utm_source=yesmail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=201646

[marcusk]

Thanks mate.  I have already ordered them they should be here tomorrow. 

[Hupjai]

Sweeeeeet! I actually never had the pleasure of trying stock lines because I swapped them right after my purchase of the bike.

I'd recommend  reusing the oem bolts if the pitch is a little off on the calipers.

[Daeouse]

Oh I'm so glad someone asked this! It was something I was kicking around in my head making a decision, so this is so helpful!

[user11235813]

Clarification: 3 of the banjo bolts are 1.0mm pitch and one is 1.25mm pitch. the 1.25 will be either the front caliper or the front master cylinder. Best to use the HEL SS bolts. I think the 1.0mm bolts have a 7 stamped on them, that's the OEM bolts.

@marcusk Did I you have to get new lines ?

I don't understand the question. I got new lines because Suzuki recommend new lines every 4 years, but the SS lines are for life.

The Hel will come with instructions that include their recommended torque. I used their settings rather than the suzuki settings because the HEL use a thick copper washer and I thought that maybe they needed the extra torque because of that. But there doesn't seem to be any problems so it seems safe to use the HEL recommended torque, plus the steel they use is different to the OEM.

[marcusk]

Thanks user11235813

Sorry for the jibberish in that response.  The question I was trying to get out is when your bolts had incorrect pitch did you have to go back to hel for the correct bolts ?

Following your last post that's cleared up that question.

I'm not sure how I ended up being so incoherent I think a mix of iPad auto correct and me having some sort of brain failure when I was typing.  I am smarter than I sound most days.

[user11235813]

@Rallyfan,

ha ha. Ok, The Hel dealer was a short drive away so I just made sure I had an extra bolt. I only decided to get a SS bleed screw at the last minute while I was there, not really important but I thought I may as well, he assured me that they were all a standard pitch. What is annoying of course is that not having a car, there was no way to replace it.

I will tell you though that never having done this before I was absolutely flabbergasted at how the entire brake system is at the mercy of this little bleed screw. I got a bit paranoid because I didn't want to strip the thread by over torquing and I didn't want it to not be tight enough because the whole brake system would collapse. So I spend hours on the interwebs checking out the millions of people who have wondered the same question about how to torque the bleed screw, mainly for cars but it's the same difference.

The end result is that there is not torque spec. How can there be no friggen torque spec for such an important item. But that's how it is. Basically it's finger tight and just snug it a touch. What the F does that mean? I know right, it's only an absolutely critical part, I think I ended up settling on about 6ft/lbs or maybe 5ft/lbs. It took me about two weeks to stop fretting over it.

[marcusk]

Ha ha yeah bleed screws I damaged a caliper on my fathers Toyota when I was about 14 when I decided I would teach myself how to bleed brakes.  I was not all that popular for a day or two. In the end it was a split seal in the master cylinder but a good learning experience. 

I tend to just use my index and pointer finger against the spanner and look for about 1/8 turn past snug.  It really is a feel thing.  Saying that a friend of mine who has bleed brakes a hundred times destroyed his front caliper on his R1 and he didn't think he was being heavy handed at all.

M

[marcusk]

Ok so lines arrived today and I attempted to install them.  So the problems I have had so far

1. Front lines only shipped with 1 Gromit
2. Thread pitch issues on the Banjos what the bike needs is 3 fine pitched and 1 coarse for the front calliper what they shipped wa the exact opisit.

I called Hel performance in Brisbane and they where excellent about the whole thing they apologised for the problem and are couriering the correct parts out to me.  Would have been nice if it was correct out of the box but I can't complain about the service.

M

[user11235813]

@Marcusk,

Yeah I said it was 3 fine and one course or 3x 1.0 an 1x 1.25, I was even advised here about whether the fine one goes in the caliper or the master cylinder, and I was advised the wrong way around. But that doesn't matter.

And also I knew I was going to replace the front only to start so as long as I had one fine and one coarse I could do that. So you can go ahead and do the front line, reusing the old grommet and replace it with the new one. I ended up using the HEL grommet but it's a bit thin for the upper clamp and you might want to slice the old gromet lengthwise and use that for the upper clamp anyway.