Had a buddy with the same soft brake problem... usually after riding for a couple miles in the summer more so than winter. He swapped out the rubber line for a stainless steel brake line and has had no problems since then.

 

Dot5 will also give you a softer lever than the previous fluids.

 

my 2001 dyna Fxdp has the same soft front brake pedal goes to about 1" of the bars then works ok. I bleed the brakes with no change.I thought it might be pads (duals on front) or the MC. But You all think its normal with dot5? anybody with a 2001 using dot 5 have normal Acting front brakes?

 

I Also Have a 2003 electraglide, and i am having the same problem. braided lines did'nt help, i changed over to braided when i swapped out my handle bars. I tried bleeeding them -no help and i still have plenty of pad left.


Ride Safe

 

Well i put my old Master CYL back on and bled the brakes. that did'nt help either.





Ride Safe

 

I had a similar problem with my brakes. After rebuilding the master cylinder and bleeding the brakes several times. I tried cleaning he calipers several times as suggested in another thread, still no luck.It turns out one of my rotors had a slight bend in it. Just a slight tap with the old B.F.H. and now the brakes are like are new.

 

I just went through this problem of excessive brake lever travel despite no air in the system and new pads. The tech at the dealer told me he had a fix and he was right--now I have almost no travel in the lever.

The problem was the pistons; he removed the calipers from the rotors, pumped the lever to get the pistons to extend, and cleaned them with brake cleaner. He did the piston extension in such a way that one pad was held against the caliper while the other pad extended fully to expose virtually all of the piston.

This piston cleaning procedure is on the Lyndal brake website and here's the link:

http://www.lyndallracingbrakes.com/service_tech.htm

The piston cleaning worked like a "miracle" in restoring the lever action to near zero travel and excellent "grab" on the rotors. The Lyndal website shows the pads being extended to the center which limits the surface area of the pistons being exposed for cleaning. If you hold one pad to the caliper and continue to squeeze the other side will extend the pistons almost fully--so the pistons
get much cleaner. Then that side's pad is pressed back toward the caliper and the other side is done.

Bet this cures a lot of the problems described above.