I seriously don’t know what happened. When I did my ape swap and put everything back together I was having a hard time bleeding the brakes. No matter what I did there was air in the lines. I finally ended up using a syringe and hose and pushed the brake fluid up from the caliper to the master cylinder. Worked like a charm. All kinds of air came up through the line.

The brakes worked great. Better than the day I brought it home. I’ve been riding around for the last 2 months and they continued to be great. All was good until Tuesday. I was doing a lot of back and forth riding from the office to my house. I noticed the brakes were taking a slightly longer pull to engage but thought it was in my head. On the ride home about 2 miles from home I went to brake and nothing. It was like there was no fluid in the MC at all. I thought maybe it leaked out or something when I was at the office. I woke up this morning and pulled the MC cover and it was full. Checked the line and calipar for leaks and nothing. No leaks anywhere. Out of all the ways to check out of this world I dont want a brake failure to be one of them!!

I've been stuck riding my daughters yamaha zuma 125 around until I can figure out what is wrong. Nobody waves at me, hahaha.

 

I think I would try bleeding again to see if anything,air or fluid even comes out. If something comes out check all the connections for tightness. If nothing happens it might be M/C failure. Good luck.

 

I am going to say the MC is shot or the seal around the cover has a small leak. I had a small leak in mine on my 06 and it did the same thing. Took time and felt like it was slowly losing braking power and sure enough after about a week poof all power gone. Found a small tear in the seal and replaced it. Life was fine after that.

 

Thanks for the responses. I was planning on trying to bleed the brakes again but will definitely check the seal on the MC. I'm just glad it happened so close to home. The brakes arent great as it is but when you lose the front its a whole new world.

 

pump the living **** out of the front brake....it'll either get better or you'll find the leak.

My apes were hanging down for a couple weeks over winter...it took forever to pump them back up.

otherwise check your fluid . I tried some dot 4/5 supposed to work for both but did not.
had to buy dot 5

different bike years take different fluid too so check your master cover

 

I read this post at work and thought there was no way it would work. I just got home and did what you said and the brakes are back!! WTF? What does this mean? Is there something wrong I need to address or is this normal? I have never had this happen on any other motorcycle I have owned,

 

Why waste hours of good riding time trying to figure out what is wrong? For around $30 and a couple of hours of your time, you can clean and rebuild your front master cylinder, flush the lines with new DOT 5 fluid, and replace the banjo bolt washers...toss in another $10 and another hour and rebuild the caliper if you still have doubts..no guessing, just done and done, and back on the road.

 

I just did my apes the other day also, after bleeding the brakes 2 different times because i wasn't happy with the "tightness" I decided to let it ride to see if it would tighten itself. Read the OP's first post and decided i better get it looked at so i don't loose my brakes completely. I saw SIX_STRNG's post, went out and tried it, the breaks tightened up very nicely, but i am getting a "squishy squeaking sound" (its coming from the little ball type thing that the brake lever pushes on to engage the brakes) I think. Not sure what that thing is called. Any Ideas? Sorry to shark your thread OP!

 

No sweat man. That's what this forum is about. Learning from each other.

I didn't think it would be necessary for a 1 year old bike with less than 3500 miles on it. It looks like I may not have a choice. Either that or drop the coin on performance machines new MC and caliper.

 

Air can get trapped at the banjo fittings. It can turn loose at any time and cause a blockage which will or can disable the brakes. If they are soft there is air in there some place. I usually just to a bench fill when the lever is not where it should be.
Take the banjo off the master cylinder, add washers to block the holes. Fill with fluid and pump until the lever gets hard , if good it will blow fluid out the top through the hole.
This may take extra pumping. Then put back to gather and bleed. When I do this I do a dry fill, All lines empty and start all over like they were new. If using a vacuum finish up by pumping the brakes at the very last time. If it was air or something had blocked somewhere this will take care of it.
I just had to do it on my super glide.