Hi guys,
I've been lurking around this forum for right at a year now. Thought I would finally say "Hi" and ask for some advice.
I've been working on these EX250's for several years. I currently have 3 in the garage. ('98,'04,'05) I just recently picked up the '98 for a project for my 18yr old son. His brother (21 yr old) has had his '05 Ninja for over 4 years now. Something that I have not been able to completely "master" is the front brake bleeding in order to get that "firm" feel. Both my '04 Ninja and the older son's '05 have rebuilt calipers with new seals, rebuilt master cylinders with new parts, S.S. lines, new washers and new EBC pads. (FA 129HH) We have bled new DOT 4 fluid from the cylinder through the line and into the caliper using multiple methods (pump/squeeze/open/close method, Mity-vac method, overnight compressed lever method, tapping the line to get air towards the cylinder method, etc., etc.) and I still get a slightly spongy feel from the two, newer bikes. I noticed that the '98 must have all original parts on the front brake, because its lever is very firm compared to the other bikes. The funny thing is, I have rebuilt the front brakes on my VFR750 a few years ago with all new parts and S.S. lines, and when I bled those brakes, I got a very firm lever from that bike, no problem.
So, besides the obvious methods that I've tried, is there something else that I may be missing? I did read how it may take multiple tries with the "compressed lever overnight" method, before it actually firms up. I have searched the net (and this forum) for brake bleeding info, and pretty much come up with the same methods, over and over. Just curious to see if anyone else has had this problem and what their fix was.
Thanks to everyone for their time in reading this. It would be great if someone had a different approach to this problem.
BTW, I'll post a pic of my '04 racer, if I figured out how to upload....