Can't believe it. Rode the bike 2 weeks ago and front brake worked fine.

Was working out in the gayrage today and backed the bike out and no front brakes. No physical fluid leak that I can see but no pressure on the lever.

Luckily I have more bikes I can ride until I get time to work on it

Dude stuff like that makes the hair on my back and neck stand up. Good thing there's a few steads in the stable.

You're not the first, what's scary is the lack of warning signs. My VTX lever is slowly coming back to the grip but it's been dying slowly. A master rebuild kit for that machine is $32 and a couple hours of labor. Don't know on the ZX-14, so far mine's holding.

It sounds like a master cylinder rebuild is in order. Defective brakes are one thing that scare me on a 190 mph machine.....frightening!

* Last updated by: Kruz on 4/7/2013 @ 6:03 PM *

Kruz no offence I did not think anything could scare you! It scares me though!

No, actually Wolfman a lot of things scare me, triple digits with a corner looming and a dead brake lever is way up there on my list of things I'd like to avoid.

nin,

1. Go back in the gayrage, yank the calipers off the forks. Take a big screwdriver and send every pad home. What this does is push whatever is built up in the master. Install the calipers again, pump the brake pedal up and see if the lever came back?

2. Forget the caliper removal. Go up to the master, paper towels all around the top bleed nipple. Place a paper towel over the nipple, the wrench is under the paper towel about to open the nipple. You pull lever, close nipple, pump a few time, open the nipple, pull lever to the grip, close nipple, pump lever. Did it come back?

Yes = That's all it needed with these type masters.
No = Rebuild in order, rubber has failed internally, i.e., no external leak, so it might possibly be inside a rebuild wouldn't fix.

I got the chance to go and play on my 1200ZRX for awhile since I let the 14 sit in time out to think about its bad behavior. Darn near forgot that it is also fun to play on.

Hub I just bled the front mc with the Mighty Vac and problem solved.

Thanks for the help guys

Later. Bobby

'Hub I just bled the front... problem solved.' = Common with these kind of designs. Clutch lever will do the same thing. And when I say common, it's more like adjusting and lubing the chain. It's a common tuneup. If I were to trackday, I'd be tuning up the master nipples. I've had it happen to both. Found pushing the pistons in was flushable, as is the nipple accomplishing the same thing. Brought back a hard lever than I was used to.

The more I thought about it, if say the push seal nicked the highest point off the rubber, That push has to send oil thru that cut on the backside of itself. So if that started to fill in the back, the piston you pop that seal over, it comes back, it's going to push the oil back into that groove it came from, say a little, and that metal piston coming back to the lever's first rubber you remove to rebuild, well I would assume it would leak out there is a seal leak variable. Internally what is going on is most likely that chamber can agitate some air bubbles or something to cause air to happen inside? I really have no clue how it starts the process?

If say that happens again in a year = ???
But if it happens again in two weeks, or that lever begins to lose its hardness it's at now? = Rebuild top to bottom so there is no question.