A few months ago, I was riding on Highway 16 from Marion Va, to Tazwell, known as the Back of the Dragon, 32 miles, 3 mountains, hundreds and hundreds of turns. Somewhere like 600 of them. Anyway, running DOT 5 brake fluid, the single disc brake of my sportster proved to be entirely inadequate. While I was having a good ol' time pushing the bike as fast as I could, the brake fluid boiled.

What happens when brake fluid boils? You lose the brake, that's what. I was burning down a small straight at 45mph, started reaching for brake for the next curve, and got *nothing*. The lever fully depressed as I pulled it in...

This is where it gets ugly. As soon as I had the lever fully pulled in, the brake suddenly came back. Do the math. You're going 45mph, and in a fraction of a second your front wheel LOCKS UP. Holy cow, we're about to have a bad time.

The wheel violently jerked to the right causing injury #1, a dislocated right thumb joint, and the bike went barrel rolling, side over side, down the highway. It sent me flying like a ragdoll and I landed on my backside. I wear a full-face helmet and a riding jacket. One sleeve was missing the velcro cuff, and that sleeve did nothing to stay in place, so that arm got road-rash, as did my left hip from when I hit the asphalt. Other than that, I was ok.

WEAR A REAL HELMET FOLKS. Anyway, moving on.

My fellow riders stopped and helped me get the bike out of the ditch it rolled into. Miraculously it still ran, and we limped 2 hours back home.

At retail price for parts, I did about $3,000 damage minimum to the bike, maybe more. The forks seemed to be okay, but the wheel was badly out of true, the bars were toast, the risers were cracked, the derby cover was warped, all 4 blinkers broken, headlight busted, tac busted, pipes destroyed, the list goes on, and on, and on, and on.

I removed all the broken parts which left me with this:





I knew a change had to happen. I like to ride bikes fast, and I love my harley.

I work at a local motorcycle shop as a mechanic, and my boss has about 50 parts bikes just sitting around. So for $250 I bought the complete front-end off a 1992 Honda CBR600. Trees, forks, wheel, all of it. Why you ask?

TWIN DISC BRAKES.

To purchase new harley forks, a new wheel, brake calipers, etc, I was looking at over $2,000. Not going to happen, especially since those brakes are not race-rated what so ever.

I spent 8 or 9 hours today working in the mist and rain trying to get it to talk to my sporter's neck. Right off the bat I ran into bearing issues. Harley uses roller bearings, whereas hondas use ball bearings. So I took the dremel to the inside of the harley bearings to open up the inside so they would slide down over the honda neck, and let me tell you, Harley uses some HARD, HARD steel on those things. It took over an hour of careful grinding to get the fitment perfect. Wow what a job. As of now, the bottom ball bearing from honda is working okay until I buy another harley bearing to modify the same way.

After the tree was secure, I got the clip-on's attached and got to work with brass shims and e-tape to space them out so my 1" harley hardware would fit where needed. I grabbed the Master Cylinder off a honda magna VF750 and used that instead of my stock stuff due to banjo bolt fitment issues. Right now my speedo is simply bolted onto the top tree with some simple spacers. It ended up kind of crooked, so on another day i'll take it off and open up the hole a little bit to level it out. I also ran out of time for a good headlight mount, so for today and tomorrow a simple L bracket will do the job.

The new setup really encourages easy turning.

My boss was there that day, he knew exactly what had happened after I explained to him the circumstances of the crash. His immediate remedy was better brake fluid. Specifically Motul RBF Racing fluid. RBF 600 is what he recommended.

Why RBF 600? Even DOT 5 ****sucks**** by comparison. I managed to boil my fluid riding it hard. You could too. For $20 you can dramatically increase the safety of your motorcycle.



http://www.motosport.com/US/dirtbike...FSbl7AodiyIAYA

After I get my new bottom bearing, I'll worry about welding on some proper stoppers for the tree movement, and a plethora of other small details, but overall, here's what I have after day 1.



Here soon i'll be starting on rear-set pegs, hiding the wiring, and re-doing the paint scheme on the bike & wheel.

Changing the fork seals on the CBR front end was a damn JOB and a half. One of them came apart no problemo. The right side fork, the one with the blown seal, one of the inner fork rings was trying to ride up on top of the slide bushing. The job turned into a dissection that took over 2 hours to cut out the stuck-in fork seal, pry out the seal washer, and finally convince the fork to separate into its respective halfs. After it was all back together, I juiced her up with some quality 10 weight fork oil, and WOW what a difference it made. Fresh seals and oil makes riding that harley like riding on a cloud.

I replaced the contaminated front brake pads with some new EBC Double-H sintered brakes, and they. are. outstanding. This sportster will stop on a dime now! Coupled with the Motul RBF 600 brake fluid, I feel very, very confident I wont have any more brake-related crashes.

Next items on the agenda, to fix my minor exhaust leak, and to replace my clutch friction disks. I got a new Kevlar clutch kit and diaphram spring in, but also had to wait on the specialty clutch tool to arrive before i could kick-off the job.

Lucky for me, one of my boss's friends just-so-happened to have a set of stock mufflers, and he let me have them for free. My slash-cut straight pipes were toast. So I really lucked out here.





This winter the monoshock & paint job will happen, and she'll be done.

 

Glad you came thru it relatively unscathed.

Nice solution with the CBR front end!

 

Impressive work, you are making the best of bad situation and I like your creation for sure. Glad you are ok, and I bet that sporty will stop on a dime!

 

The bike, brakes, brake fluid and any other thing you mentioned weren't at fault.

The best thing for you is to properly learn how to ride a bike. You didn't ride that Sportster hard enough to "boil brake fluid". Riding like a squid with little to lose did you in. You need to take the MSF course and really learn the fundamentals. Watching YouTube videos isn't enough for you.

Bolting rice parts won't fix your dangerous inexperience either. We'd appreciate if you sold off your freshly wrecked bike so it can keep the insurance rates down for the rest of us.

 

Colo, I appreciate your post, but I've been riding for quite some time. Its a pretty simple equation. If you try to send a 550lb bike through mountainous terrain at fluctuating speeds up to and including 100mph, and brake hard at every curve for extended periods of time, that fluid *will* boil. That's race basics. That's why racing brake fluid exists in the first place. That's why harleys call for DOT 5 instead of 3. You know what the difference is? The boiling temperature. Perhaps you should look into it.

In short, the sportster is not built as a racing motorcycle. It cannot sustain race speeds and *not* encounter issues in stock form.

I don't know too many other harley riders who know how/when to properly hang off a bike, let alone a sportster.

To put it in perspective, I ride all my bikes like this:

 

I know the road you speak of well. I live in east KY on the VA boarder. I have never boiled my brake fluid but want say it cant happen. I have rode for over 30 years. Most people don't encounter the road conditions like we have here in coal country. The Dragons tail in Tenn. is a joke to us here. The brake system of anything can over heat, at that point a loss in performance will result. I have felt this many times with my own. My 06 883 has an 88 frontend I used all new parts for the rebuild. After pushing hard on the Black mountain I can feel a loss of braking power. While I'm not a fan of mixing and match parts, that's how we did it years ago. And looks as though you have done a good job. I hope all works out for you and your back at it soon. Oh and glade you came out of the wreck ok.

 

that's a crazy story, so you actually dremeled the inside of the Harley bearing to enlarge it to fit the Honda front end? sound difficult and time consuming.


Did you have any brake upgrades before the accident? better pads or steel hoses?

sounds like a road to stay away from, some curves are fun but 600?? after about 10 it stops being fun and starts becoming work, not my idea of fun. if your brake fluid boils imagine how hot the pads & rotors would be..


did you ever think about getting a sportster XR1200 or a used buell?

 

No kiddin'!

I suppose you could take the awesome 1986 Yugo with it's best 0-60 time of 13.9 seconds and best ¼ mile time of 19.5 seconds @ a speed of 69.5 mph and fit it with a blown 426 hemi, and the suspension and brakes of a Bugatti Veyron so it would run like a banshee, corner like a UFO and stop on a dime, but what would you have? You'd have changed something into what it was never designed to be, at great expense in both time and money.

If you plan on continuing your canyon carving and knee dragging I think you should stick to a sportsbike and Power Ranger outfit and leave your Sportster alone to be what it was designed to be, a very respectable and stable cruiser.

To ride the Sportser in any other fashion is dangerous. And we have enough of that going on in regards to the sportbike riders...they can't be told anything...these young punks are all full of **** and vinegar and drive like mad wearing their Superman capes. But sadly in my area there are too many shrines that've been created on the curves of major roadways and locally on telephone poles and other immoveable objects that consist of pictures, stuffed animals, flower arrangements and candles, that are maintained by loved ones and friends in rememberance of the dearly departed...sigh...between this and the fact that we have a guy at work who's a part time mortician who's got way too many stories to tell involving motorcycles, it's a constant reminder for me to act accordingly while riding.

So please ride within your abilities and the abilities of your machine, before God forbid the next accident leaves you an amputee, quadraplegic, or worse.

That said, glad you're ok and able to ride again.

=8^)

 

You are making several assumptions about this rider, his skill level, and his bike. It is possible to boil his brake fluid, and all he is trying to do is alert the forum of his situation so it doesn't happen to someone else thus causing an accident, effectively raising the rates of your precious insurance premiums.

http://www.lelandwest.com/brake-flui...ison-chart.cfm

How do you know he doesn't lack the finances to properly repair his Harley? He is just trying to make the best of a bad situation, and he obviously has enough mechanical know-how to rig up a rather unconventional repair.

Hopefully you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I know nothing about this guy, but I'd be willing to bet if he drove past you on the side of the road and your bike was broken down, he would stop and try and help you out.