It was a busy long weekend in the winter maintenance garage. In addition to going over all the electrical connectors on the Tiger, I also did the front brake pads, which weren’t making any noise, but after last year’s noisy rear brakes forcing a change during the too-short Canadian riding season, I figured some preventative maintenance was in order, and good thing too! You can see the metal noise strips just becoming visible in the photo.
The brake change was pretty straightforward with the caliper pin cover coming off with a bit of heat and the rest of the pieces coming apart with no problems. After cleaning up the metal spring pads with a wire brush and thoroughly cleaning the calipers, everything went back together with minimum fuss. The caliper action was nice and smooth and they willingly got pushed to full open to accept the new pads. After a couple of pumps of the lever everything was tight and grippy again. I managed to find the types of caliper I was looking for on Fortnine, and they happened to be orange and look good on the Lucifer Orange Tiger.
The only real pain were the brake master cylinder cover bolts. The first one came out easily enough, but the second didn’t want to come no matter what I did. Eventually a hammered in Phillip’s head screwdriver and some heat cracked the bolt’s grip and out it came, but it’s pretty mangled.
I was able to find that the bolt is a countersunk M5x16mm bolt. It’s a pretty common thing so I’m hoping I don’t have to order it online and can pick one up locally. It’s probably too much to ask to find one that’s got a nice coloured, metallic finish.
That covers what I wanted to get done as far as winter maintenance goes with the Tiger. Other than the brakes and a clean and grease, it was all about the LED indicator upgrade. Next year it’ll be a swing arm removal and chassis grease and it’ll have been several seasons since I last did the brake fluid and coolant, so that’s on the future list too. Now it’s just the long wait for spring and a chance to get out and ride again.
In the meantime the Honda Fireblade Project is also in pretty good shape. The carbs are sorted, as is the petcock. I’m only waiting on a break in the weather to test everything. In the meantime I’ve got another set of the LED indicators waiting to go on, but I’m tempted to wait on that as long as the stock ones work.
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