I've reading this forum for a while now and finally had a question worth posting. The other day riding on the highway my front brake decided to lock up on me. I felt the front brake lever getting tighter and tighter every time I stopped at a toll booth, however, it never got too bad so I didn't think that much of it. About 5 minutes later my front brake lever was so hard you couldn't move it a mm without both hands. I let the bike site for about 3 minutes and my caliper released from the rotor. To be on safe side i bled the brake about 2 pumps until my lever was mushy. Now when I went to bleed my brake to regain pressure I got nothing. I have no air in the lines that I can see and pumping it wont even get fluid from the caliper to the bleed bottle. I've read a few posts on it and it's been mentioned that installing new levers can leave the MC open enough to leak to the brakes. I did install new levers about a week ago but they never gave my problems in 100 miles I rode previous with them. I was wondering if anyone has had a similar problem and what worked before I start ripping things apart. Thank you.

 

Try starting with:
Is this a Harley? What model?
Is this a new bike or is it 30 years old? What year?
1,000 miles on the bike or 100,000?

 

2000 sportster 1200xl.
6,000 miles

 

It sounds like your master cylinder is shot, first it wasn't letting the fluid back from the caliper when you released the brakes and now it's not pushing fluid to the caliper at all.
I'm not sure if you can get a rebuild kit or just have to replace it completly.

 

I bet your brake fluid jello'd. I had this happen too this year. I'm in the process of tearing the whole system apart to do a flush/rebuild on my '00.

 

Yes, you can get a master cylinder rebuild kit. 9/16" bore, if I remember correctly.

 

http://www.jpcycles.com/product/2400778


Would that be what I'm looking for?
That's a lot less than I thought.

 

That looks like the right one.

 

Thanks guys. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

So I got the rebuild kit. The plunger was larger than what I needed and the spring was shorter. I reused the old plunger and spring and used the new gaskets and bled the system. Seems to be working better than ever. I'm going to laconia for bike this weekend so I guess that will be the real test.