Fitting the hydraulic disc brake

Fitting the hub was fairly self-explanatory, and the one problem I did have (front wheel not being central in the forks) I posted about previously, and I rectified it by straightening out some wear on one of the fork links. It is worth noting however that these hubs (mine's a SPAQ/Sterling jobby) don't require a nut between the link and the large plate on the right hand side. The hubs don't come with them, but at a recent parts fair I saw some of these hubs with nuts fitted - I guess the stall owner thought they were missing and fitted them!

Here's a pic of the assembly in place:



To connect it all I discarded the rather bulky rubber hose that came with the unit and bought a new slimmer Goodridge braided stainless steel one from http://www.busters-accessories.co.uk/. This is what I got:

Buildaline Adaptor Banjo 90deg 3/8 Jic Male 5.99 1 5.99
Buildaline Adaptor Banjo 45deg 3/8 Jic Male 5.99 1 5.99
S/B Buildaline Hose 1100mm Clear

The 90 degree banjo enabled me to avoid having any exposed hose at the top of the bike. I simply used a round file to create a hole in the top if the headset for the banjo and the small front brake wire to feed through. Here's the end result, a lot neater than any others I've seen:



And here's an internal shot, showing how it all worked out:

Here you can also just see a replacement white earth wire that I fitted from the headlight to the mounting point of the throttle guide. This provides a more reliable earth than the headlight rim as is standard. The loom comes in on the right on my bike, as I simply couldn't find the room on the left!

Front wheel not central?

My new outboard disc hub wasn't sitting central in my forks, it was about 9mm off. I don't have a photo because I was too annoyed to take one.

I couldn't work out why this might be, and a bit of googling only led me to one theory that I had a bent fork link. I can't possibly imagine a scenario where a fork link might get bent. If your fork link was exposed, in situ, to enough force to bend it then other things would bend or break first, surely?

With this in mind I dismantled it again and found the culprit. In the photo below you can see uneven wear on the face around the edge of the bush. The face has worn to the rear of the link (the top in this photo), but not at the front. This causes the link to sit at an angle when fitted to the forks.

The fix is simple. I filed the rest of the face in line with the wear so that the face was perpendicular to the bush/bolt that holds it in place. Then to compensate for the loss of width I doubled-up with another cup on this side, as not very clearly shown in this photo. You could also use a large penny washer under the cup.

While I'm on the topic of fitting the front hub, an important part of fitting your front hub assembly is using the right axle washers. They ensure that the hub sits exactly where its supposed to be but are more importantly a critical safety feature which will hold your wheel in place even if your main nut becomes a bit loose.

It's all back together now, and I'm pleased to say it sits perfectly in the middle!