Just bought an '03 Ultra and the front brake feels very soft. I thought it was just diffent from the Honda Sport Touring bike I came from. I had the bike serviced and checked and asked the mechanic to check the front brake. So when I picked up the bike the mechanic tells me that he has an '03 and it is normal for the brake to feel like that.
So I rode the wife's new (to us) '05 Ultra and the front brake feels and works normal... So my questions are...
Is it really normal for the front brake of an '03 Ultra to feel soft? Do I need to suck it up and just get used to squeezing the lever harder?
Is the '03 master cylinder incorrect for the application, like maybe they used one for a single disk instead of the dual disk?
Could it be that there is air in the line, however I think the mechanic would have known that?
Is there an easy fix for this, or do I need a new master cylinder?

 

Best thing I ever did for my front brakes was to buy a set of speedbleeders. You can bleed your front brakes in minutes. Well worth the money. Check your hoses too as they may be in need of replacement. http://www.speedbleeder.com/

 

Just read all 8 pages of the Soft Front Breake Pull thread that somehow appeared as a sticky note after I posted this.
Thanks!
Sounds like I need to clean my calipers. I would think the dealership mechanics would know this and would have done this while I had the bike in for service. Oh well, they may have caused me a little work, but saved me a few dollars.

 

How are the brake lines?

 

Well add me to the list of beleivers for cleaning the brake caliper pistons... Cleaned them after work today and just got back from a test run.
Just like new... Yahoo!

I am not sure what actually happens there because the little bit of crud on the pistons shouldn't hold the pistons against the hydraulic pressure of the master cylinder. After taking the calipers loose from the fork (one at a time) I slid the pads against one side, placed my screwdriver so that the pistons on one side would extend to clean, and then slid them to the other side to extend the other two pistons, reinstalled the caliper and then repeated on the other side.

All that said, I would be more inclined to beleive that there could have been air bubbles in some of the pistons that were dislodged with the motion and allowed to return to the master cylinder!?!?!?

Whatever happened... it works!

 

Also, the '03 models have a revised valving in the front brake master. The softness may return. The fix is to replace the master cylinder with an earlier than '03 or later than '03 master cylinder.

 

You know, the master cyclinder having an issue was my first inclination. It seems as though it is just not moving enough oil. It did work to clean the slave cylinders (caliper pistons), but I cannot fully understand why that would work, other than like I said in my last post that moving the pistons around may have flushed out an air bubble or two!?!?!?

Anyway, thanks for the heads up! If the symptoms come back I will definately look at replacing the master cylinder.