Just fitted a set of front braided lines to my ABS. They are branded R&G but are manufactured by Hel. Took a few hours in total including a full ABS bleed. Not going to go into how they are fitted but it’s all pretty straight forward, just takes a little common sense. Just a few notes if you were confident with bleeding and were thinking of doing your self. Banjo bolts were full of swarf, before fitting you need to remove using a suitable drill bit. you do not want swarf floating around in your lines Bolts are much shorter than OEM, torque settings in the manual I felt were way too high (34Nm) I have them at a slightly lower torque as I felt anymore it might shear. The blocks at the end of the lines are not threaded, the OEM lines use this to fix the lines into the bracket near the radiator, I used a zip tie to secure. The OEM lines are secured to the mud guard on the right side using a built in bracket, the sensor wire is secured at the same point. The R&G lines do not have this bracket so you will find the existing bolt is too long to secure the sensor wire on its own. To resecure the sensor wire you will need to find a shorter bolt. I’m not going to comment yet on their performance, as they are under pressure right now. I will check again tomorrow for leaks and complete a final bleed. Lever under pressure - hopefully no leak tomorrow!! Also fitted some speed bleeders, note the calipers are M7 while the M/C is M8 Picture fitted After a week of use I will come back and review, but the lever does feel a little harder. Apologies for the dirty Blade but I only washed it a few days ago, only takes a wet day on the M4 to make it filthy! Hope this helps anyone that is considering doing this.
Mine are being fitted at the Dealers as we speak! Should be ready come Monday and I'm off on a 4 day Mini Tour of the Yorkshire Dales come Thursday so will report back myself from Sunday onwards.
Thanks for the info. Very good to know. Be interested to hear feedback on the difference it has made. It's one of the first things I want to do to mine over the winter or next time I go to the dealers.
Yes mate, bought mine of ABM on ere, as some re-sellers have proved themselves less than competent in what they Peddle!
Thanks SW, its a little disappointing that they are not threaded, what did Hel/R&G think would be used to secure the lines back to the bracket. Zips will do the job but it is a little shoddy, hey ho you don't see it anyway!. Didn't think to ask Arthur to make a set!. And I know what you mean about resellers, would be really cheesed off to find my banjos were the wrong way round!
A dealer will charge an hour or 2 to fit but will probably add several more to do the bleed! So this route would be quite pricey! If you are confident you can do a full bleed you can do this easily. The bleed by the way is straightforward once you do it a few times, the first time you will 'turtle head' at every step!, just print out the instructions and slowly follow word for word, cos its the brakes you need to be confident you did it right!. If you want to go this route learn to bleed first, there are a few of us on this forum who will be glad to give you advice if you need it. When I do stuff like this for the first time (and it goes for anything such as electrics plumbing etc) I alway take a tonne of pictures of the parts before starting as this gives a reference if you do get stuck.
After testing everything was safe took the Blade out for a spin. Wasn't expecting much but there is a marked improvement in both performance and feel. For starters the lever feels harder, still not rock hard as you would expect from a full brembo setup but better. I still have plans to fit a Brembo RCS. Really putting the anchors on you can feel the ABS acting more directly if not slightly fierce, stopping distances seem to be shorter in both emergency type braking and hard controlled braking. You can really hear the the tyres squirming as the ABS tries to find grip. This of course is all butt feelings but I know my bike well and there is a definite improvement, whether this is due to a recent full bleed or the new lines I can't tell. The real test will how they with my daily commute into London... update to come.
