Wilsons Sandbox

Sometimes I just sit and look at my bike trying to think of some way to improve things. Here's my latest: I took a 1/4" aluminum base plate from an old AT&T System 75 console, cut out a nice shape for a rear master cylinder guard that would cover from the hose at the top to the adjustment nuts at the bottom, shaped with a couple of rounded places in the front for the bolts, finished the edges with a file and sandpaper, cut two shims from the corners of the aluminum plate, used the old washers from the plastic bash plate for master cylinder alignment since the bolt shoulders are now in the new guard and it looks like some kind of a factory guard!!! The color even perfectly matches the frame. I also cut off a length of the aluminum shaft of an old Stihl weed-whacker, drove two grips from a junk tiller onto the ends and used two hose clamps to mount it to the front/top of the Moose plate. This all sounds hokey as all getout but it really looks nice. The aluminum of both pieces perfectly matches the frame. Ron-A15-in-MO

If it works for you that's all that really matters. Here's an idea I came up w/ and maybe others have: I used some aluminum sheet ( scrounged from some previous use) to form a "glove box" just above the headlight. I'm not looking at the bike now and it's been a while, but I'm pretty sure there are 2 screws there for the head light that I used to mount it. I would take a piece of cereal box cardboard to make a pattern first. Mine has a curved top and sides maybe 1 1/4 inches, You have to curve the bottom edge also to go over headlight wire cable. It works great for many things and is designed not to get in the way when

Conall's advice about taking off the caliper first is right on. I know better than to pump the hydraulics when the rotor is out so I'm not sure what happened here. However, I took the caliper apart (again) and made sure the piston was fully retracted. (caliper float mechanism is perfectly smooth to either extreme) I think I felt you all looking over my shoulder and working just the precise magic I needed to make everything work perfectly and that's what it's doing now. I feel much better. This isn't rocket science, no, but I had to work through it in stages. Thankyou Conall, Kurt, LPetty, Fred and to Dennis Angus for the piston retraction suggestion. Good having you guys around. eric