How to de-Link without caliper modification

Joined
Jun 1, 2020
Messages
591
Location
Oklahoma, USA
Bike
2006 ST1300
I will add detail in the coming days with hose length and fitting orientation. I'll be editing it for organization and readability. Also, there are some pictures that will help.

I removed the linked aspect of my braking system. The legal and safety risks for which you accept if you choose to do it to your own machine. I'm very happy with the end result, YMMV. The end result is all 6 front caliper pistons are controlled solely by the front brake lever, and the rear 3 caliper pistons are controlled solely by the rear brake pedal. READ EVERYTHING BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING.

To do it right, you must replace the front master cylinder. If you don't, the lever will travel too far back. I bought a 5/8" Nissin master cylinder new for around $150. It works great. With the 5/8" master cylinder, front brake bite, progression, and feedback are excellent. The lever does not travel too far back and the brakes are not grabby. You will also need to purchase 3x double banjo bolts of you use the same method I did. There are alternatives, two of which I describe. You will also need 2 or 3 caps for SMC fittings.

Preparation
All the hardware and hydraulics connecting front to back is removed, with three exceptions. First, the SMC is locked up with JB weld and retained. Second, there's some hard plumbing on the right side that was a pain to get at. I cut those lines as far back as made sense and left the rest attached. The hard lines on the swingarm were retained as a scaffold to which the new rear brake lines were zip tied. However, the link-related hydraulic valves are gone as are all the hardware and hoses related to the linked system.

To remove the old stuff, I had the plastic removed. At a minimum, you have to remove the front plastic and the right side.

With the plastic off, loosen the front and rear reservoir caps so the brake fluid will drain freely when we start snipping things.

Front plumbing removal
From there, I literally took a pair of long handled diagonal cutters and started cutting hoses and letting everything drain into pans and bottles. You'll remove the crossover metal lines on the front fender and all the hoses and metal lines traversing the head tube. The diagonal cutters also make short work of the hard plumbing. Leave enough hard plumbing on the right side so that it can be affixed to something. It's time consuming and not worth it to remove the hard plumbing aft of the right coil.

Rear plumbing removal
Cut the two rubber lines toward the front, right side of the swingarm. Catch brake fluid with wads of paper towels.

Calipers
Clean and inspect. It's a great time to rebuild them. Remove the fittings from the calipers. Clean everything and reinstall the brake bleeders with sealant made for that purpose.

SMC
Remove the caliper from the SMC and remove the SMC from the left fork leg. Disassemble the SMC and remove all fittings from it. Clean it thoroughly. I mixed JB weld directly in the SMC. Then, i pushed the spring and stopper back in and reinstalled the cap with the circlip. JB Weld will have leaked out. Wipe down the SMC and cap all the orifices.

New hoses
I measured new hose length and fitting angle using lengths of 10 gauge building wire. It holds its shape and orientation, so you can get length and angle of the fittings. I wrote the details on the lengths of wire.

I took the wires to a hydraulic shop and had the lines made right there while I waited. It was a little under $200.

Installation
For the rear, you already have a double banjo bolt. Run one line to each hydraulic input on the rear cylinder. The rear master cylinder then controls all 3 rear cylinders.

The front is a little more complicated because it depends on how you want to put the inner and outer caliper chambers onto the same hydraulic circuit.

There are 3 ways I had considered communicating the chambers on the front calipers. One way is to use a small rotary tool or a drill to perforate the center chamber.

Another way is to run 2 lines to each front caliper as was done in the rear.

Another way is to use a double banjo bolt at the caliper and run a jumper line to the other hydraulic input. That's what I did. So, there is a double banjo bolt in the master cylinder, and two lines head down from there to each front caliper. At each front caliper, there is a double banjo bolt and a jumper to hydraulically communicate the two chambers. See picture. I will later measure and create more compact hard jumper lines or I will run a splitter on each line up by the headlights and then run two lines to each caliper. I think it would be cleaner looking, but the jumpers work fine.

The brakes function properly like traditional, un-linked brakes. The front master cylinder operates all 6 front pistons and have no affect on the rear caliper. The rear MC operates all three rear pistons and has no impact on either front caliper.

The brake lines on my bike are both routed to the left side of the head tube. I attached an air hose retaining bracket toward the right side in space newly opened by removing the linking plumbing. I cannot emphasize enough that if you choose to do this, you really want to spend time to make sure your brake line routing will not snag anything or get pulled tight. Whatever wiring mods or farkle stuff you might have parked behind the headlights could be a problem. Move your handlebars left and right all the way to lock.

Bleeding
The first bleed of the front brakes takes some patience. It's easiest with the calipers off so you can make sure the bleeding nipples are the highest points. The rear is easy. Subsequent bleeds on the front are also easy.

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I'm all for delinking with a fork swap job,(forks/triples/calipers) but just my 2cents, never would do a replumb with the oem gear. (Probably the engineer in me)
That hose loop on the right caliper scares the crap outta me.....
-Would keep the rear caliper and drill a path between the 2 circuits.(no hose loop) Plug one outlet. Then use one hose to the master cylinder. The M/C needs to be checked for correct size, possibly changed.
 
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[...] never would do a replumb with the oem gear. (Probably the engineer in me)
That hose loop on the right caliper scares the crap outta me.....
-Would keep the rear caliper and drill a path between the 2 circuits.(no hose loop) Plug one outlet. Then use one hose to the master cylinder. The M/C needs to be checked for correct size, possibly changed.

There are multiple ways to communicate the chambers. I'm not sure how the interior is configured, so I did it this way. Modifying the caliper leaves open room to structurally weaken it if you don't know how it's built.

The loop is no more scary then the way brake lines were routed in the old days. Nothing came up to grab them then, either. I'm likely to go to two lines to avoid the loop, though. I just don't think it looks all that good. A small, stainless or aluminium link could also work.

The MC was changed out. Did you skip to the pictures straight away?
 
The loop is no more scary then the way brake lines were routed in the old days. Nothing came up to grab them then, either. I'm likely to go to two lines to avoid the loop, though. I just don't think it looks all that good. A small, stainless or aluminium link could also work.

What about something like this... https://brakequip.com/products/hardware/banjo-adapters-with-port/
You could put one on each banjo port and link them with a small hard line that you could make yourself and tuck it in, nice and neat
 
What about something like this... https://brakequip.com/products/hardware/banjo-adapters-with-port/
You could put one on each banjo port and link them with a small hard line that you could make yourself and tuck it in, nice and neat

Yup, I need to spend some more time looking at fittings. The ports are so close, I haven't found threaded fittings that would work. Yet. The contraption ends up too long. I'm not 100% certain they're on the same plane, either, although my eyeball gauge says they are.
 
There are multiple ways to communicate the chambers. I'm not sure how the interior is configured, so I did it this way. Modifying the caliper leaves open room to structurally weaken it if you don't know how it's built.

The loop is no more scary then the way brake lines were routed in the old days. Nothing came up to grab them then, either. I'm likely to go to two lines to avoid the loop, though. I just don't think it looks all that good. A small, stainless or aluminum link could also work.

The MC was changed out. Did you skip to the pictures straight away?

Agree about structure, just saying it worth looking in to drilling an internal path. It would take a caliper teardown. Its been done on the VFR...
Still, understand to each his own and credit the work, but I'm too OCD, maybe as a temp solution, but longer term would do a full fork swap solution. I know that's some bucks and research.

Guess I should mention that did the full delink with forks and calipers on my VFR, so that is part of my bias.... -- Really would like to do a ST1300 anyhoo.... probably would look at the VFR1200 gear first.... (yes, I'm a whackjob.)
 
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What part number master cylinder did you use?
Does the stock brake lever fit?
I’d like to try that to compare with my stock mc to 5 pistons.

For the curious about drilling,
screen shot from cbrxx.com

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I'm curious about using a rotary tool and cutting the back off the middle chamber. I think there would be a lot of air trapped, but maybe not?
 
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Yeah the loop looks a little awkward and inelegant but obviously gets the job done.

An alternative might be to get two banjo fittings and weld a bit of tubing into them. It would probably take some creative thinking to smooth the transition from fitting to tubing for a finished look.

But something that would look trick is the aluminum link you mentioned. Get a pieces of bar stock thick enough for the passage you want to drill and drill the banjo bolt holes. Then drill horizontally through one end of the bar down the length and into the hold for the banjo bolt at the other end. It would be simple to relieve the surface of one end of the bar if the bolt holes aren't on the same plane. Radius the corners and edges slightly for some kind of factory look.

Weld up the one external hole and finish the bar with machine turning / bead blasting / black wrinkle paint / powder coat whatever your preference. For those who did notice it wasn't factory kit some might surmise what you've done but a lot would be scratching their head – none the wise when you said it's a bridge / tunnel / path for brake fluid.

"But... but... It's a sold bar!?"
"Atomic osmosis."
 
^^^^^ the bleed is screw in in the way. I'm still at not for me. The job has to look OEM or no go.
 
Why can you not remove the bleed nipple on the end of the caliper and just drill through the center wall between the top piston (I'm saying top using the orientation shown in your pic in post #11) and the middle piston? If your drill bit is long enough it should reach the bottom piston too. I would think this connecting port would then be behind the piston when new pads are fitted. You would still retain the center piston bleed nipple to help purge air bubbles. After drilling and removing burrs, replace the bleed nipple.
 
Why can you not remove the bleed nipple on the end of the caliper and just drill through the center wall between the top piston (I'm saying top using the orientation shown in your pic in post #11) and the middle piston? If your drill bit is long enough it should reach the bottom piston too. I would think this connecting port would then be behind the piston when new pads are fitted. You would still retain the center piston bleed nipple to help purge air bubbles. After drilling and removing burrs, replace the bleed nipple.
Good idea!! Worth lookin at
 
With tubing, I think you can get around the bleed nipple. With a solid block, you can still cut it into a c shape and drill three ways, then cap or weld the ends. I think two lines is the easiest and drilling the chambers is the cleanest. Fabbing any kind of solid jumper would be super cool but also say far seems to be ass pain.

This was a proof of concept and there were other considerations in play. But, in hindsight, I should have done 2 lines. I just don't like the look of the jumper.
Now seeing how the drilling is done, i think it's workable if the ST caliper is like the one in the photo. I have a spare set, I'll take a look at them.
 
Drilling the hole is only intercepting a small hole/passageway between the outer cylinders.
You can look into the outer cylinders and see where the openings are. It’s a straight line from the bleeder to the upper cylinder, through the casting behind the middle cylinder, then into the lower cylinder. With those openings easy to see, it is easy to line up the drill in the middle cylinder on that passage. It does not have to be perfect. Being half a drill bit off course still leaves plenty room for fluid to move.

The only trick part about bleeding was the need to bleed at the block off bolts that replaced banjo bolt/line on the middle cylinder especially at the rear caliper.
 
The only trick part about bleeding was the need to bleed at the block off bolts that replaced banjo bolt/line on the middle cylinder especially at the rear caliper.

Why can't you just bleed from the regular middle piston bleed nipple?
 
I guess the reason for the conversion is simple, because I can! :thumb: What ever happened to that Kat who was repowering the ST with electric? Same pioneering spirit.! :biggrin:
 
Why can't you just bleed from the regular middle piston bleed nipple?

My thought was that a little air was trapped in the bore at the end of the block off bolt.
That may be possible, however, I finally got a chance to look back at what I did. I used a banjo bolt on the rear caliper to block off the port. There was so little air in the hollow to have more than adequate brake feel but not perfect until I bled the bolt.
I know, two sealing washers stacked. Do not do this at home, could result in death.
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