This evening I spent a few hours in the garage dealing with the front brakes. I fitted the brake pads but the near side caliper did not line up correctly. It took some working out including changing the wheel spindle. I ended up with the original spindle but well oiled this time. It had a look at the spare front wheel as I remembered it had a disc spacer. Having taken the bolt out of the spare wheel I found the wheel had two spacers. I dismantled the wheel on the bike and fitted the two spacers under the near side disc. I checked the caliper over and found a slider was not in its proper place. I put the slide back in place and carefully refitted the wheel. The wheel spun more freely.
I got the brake fluid from the cupboard along with the bleeding tool. I loosened the off-side caliper bleed nipple. I topped up the master cylinder until fluid came out of the nipple. I shut it off then opened the near-side nipple until fluid showed. Once the fluid showed I shut the nipple. I connected the bleeding kit to the near-side nipple and went through the bleed process. First on one side then the next. I did the cycle twice. The lever hardened up be not as much as I wanted. I checked for leaks and found a small weep where the brake line met the near-side caliper. A quarter turn on the union cured it.
To finish the job I adjusted the play from the brake cable. This reduced the lever travel which meant I could apply more pressure. It is hard to tell just how good the brakes are by just spinning the wheel and applying the brakes but it feel as it should. I connected the wires to the top of the reservoir cap. This should switched of the fluid level light but it did not. So is something to investigate. The last job was to pull the lever when the electric was on to see if the brake light came on with the squeeze of the lever. It did. Another job done.
