Project Volksrad - something abouts prophets, mountains and stopping

 "If the prophet does not come to mountain, the mountain will come to the prophet"... and it better not have early 1980ies Honda Goldwing integral brakes - 1st book of Greg, the Goldwing sermons, p. 1200.

With the plug wires hooked up correctly and a handful of fresh ones, which (added bonus) actually were long enough to route them properly things started to look a lot better on the engine front. 

So naturally the next step was to go through my box with old steel braided brake-lines and start converting the Goldwing from integral to conventional brakes. This would basically mean doing two things: Fit the front brakes with a double banjo bolt to handbrake pump. (Which would later be swapped out for a unit from a GSX600F with a 5/8" bore as the stock 14mm was leaking like a sieve.)

And the somewhat more elaborate part, of sealing up one port on the footbrake pump btw. the pump turned out to be somewhat of a show stopper as, just like its front counterpart, it was leaking and the old brake fluid had eaten away the paint on the frame. (Luckily repair kits are readily available and on the way.)

The actual conversion is pretty straightforward, as all I had to do was to cut the hardline with the fitting installed in the brake pump and then weld it up. Why the hardline? Because the flare on the bottom is what actually seals and whilst I am 99 percent sure that an M10x1.25 bolt and copper or ally washers would have done the job just as fine, this is kind of the more correct way to do it. 

The remaining port got a bit of cleanup with a brush and a file just to make sure it would seal well with a washer (it does, thanks for asking) and then really just route a brake line along the swingarm. Easy peasy really.

Which basically only left one hydraulic circuit left to tackle and for this one, as the name implies I went to a local hydraulics supply shop and bought a totally-not-a-brake-line to replace the bloated mess that was stock on this bike. 

Aside from a completely clogged up bleed nipple on the clutch slave cylinder things went about as smooth as one would expect things to go, when pretty much all the components are new or freshly overhauled. (Even though I overhauled that clutch slave four years ago.)

(Also in this picture - the new brake pump and slightly re-routed brake cables to make them fit a bit neater.)

Looks pretty good or stock if you ask me.

Bleeding went... well enough to be honest, but as for now Project Pickle, my new (to me) Suzuki SJ410 has priority over the Goldwing and before fitting the exhaust, I really want to overhaul the rear brake system entirely as the pump is leaking and brake pistons are "a bit" sticky or in other words, once applied won't let you move the big girl an inch. As such,  for now she's back in hibernation, but I promise it won't be another four years...