Sourcing Parts and Kawasaki Master Brake Cylinders

The rear brake light I ordered on Amazon in December decided to show up today. I’m going to pass it on to Jeff’s BMW cafe racer project and I think I’m done with four month delivery times from Amazon. Time to source my parts elsewhere I think. I’m curious to see how soon the rear brake light I got instead from eBay takes. I have a feeling it’s going to make the Amazon Marketplace delivery times look sketchy.

Meanwhile, a coolant overflow tank and master brake cylinder kit arrived for the Concours in a timely fashion from Fortnine. I wish they’d start stocking customization pieces like those all in one LED lighting systems.

The tank looks like it’ll fit nicely on the battery case. It isn’t as big as the stock one, but the stock one isn’t that big anyway. I’ve routed the coolant overflow tube and it fits nicely down the spine of the bike. Where it’s placed means the overflow pipe can stick out the side and not dump in the path of the rear tire.

The master brake cylinder kit took a bit of work to get into. Getting it off the bike was easy enough, but getting the compression ring out took some fiddling. I’ve replaced the rubbers on the cylinder and I’m ready to put it back together again, but the kit came with 2 copper rings that don’t seem to be on the original, so I’m going to figure out where they go before I reassemble.

Brake handle and electronic switch removal was straightforward. The only tricky bit was the snap ring that holds in the master cylinder. Compressing the cylinder while getting a pair of compression pliers in there
to squeeze the ring into the groove on the cylinder is swear worthy.

The old outer gasket was in pieces before I even started pulling it out. Rubbers don’t typically last 24 years.
Fancy people pay for that kinda patina – mine comes virtue of the bike being 23 years old and Canadian.