not getting enough pressure at front brake?

I am having an issue. I was putting new brakes on my xj 650 and once I had it all back together I was only getting about 1/8 of an inch movement. barely enough to give resistance while pushing the bike. Is it possible that the cylinder behind the brake pad is stuck down? If so how should I fix this? any thoughts would be great as this is my daily rider.

 

Try Bleeding the System of any AIR which might have entered the Lines during the recent job.

You can save time by buying;
One-way Bleeder Valves:
http://www.speedbleeder.com/

Or, ... One Man Bleeder Hose.

http://www.toolking.com/one-man-brake-b ... =430263440

Before you get too far into the job....
Pull-off the Master Cylinder Cover and Gasket
Work the Brake Lever.
If you see a miniature Old Faithful Geyser when you work the Lever,....
You need to rebuild the Master Cylinder

 

Did you change the hose for the front brake? The hose might be swollen shut and not letting fluid through. The hoses were not designed to last this long (if its the original)

MN

 

1/8 of an inch movement where? What do you mean by "putting new brakes on" ?

 

keep bleeding if you have to gravity feed it .pump the living crap out of it when bleeding. once you get a little bit of brake pump it up about 20 or 30 times before cracking the bleeder should get more and more brakes sometimes air is hard to get out of the junction block. if not you will probably need a mc

 

Valid question. What do you mean, and 1/8" where?

The "cylinder behind the pad" is the caliper piston, and it very well could be sticking or nearly frozen in place.

You fix it by rebuilding the caliper: Disassembling it, removing the old seals, cleaning the caliper body very carefully with special attention to the grooves the seals go in, polishing up the piston, etc.

It is very important to do this correctly. The Yamaha brake caliper is quite simple, yet your very life depends on it.

 

I used a large syringe to pull the fluid down through the system and out the bleeder screws, doesn't work without teflon taping the bleeder screw threads (thanks Fitz). You won't believe how fast it works. Just keep dumping the syringe fluid back into the MC. No pumping needed! Viola

 

NOOooo! Yuck! Brake fluid is cheap; until the fluid you're getting out is brand new it needs to be discarded.

Part of the process includes "installing" fresh new brake fluid; don't dump contaminated fluid back in to pollute the new fluid.

 

When I apply the brake the pad only moves about an 1/8th on an inch towards the rotor.

 

1/8 of an inch of movement on a brake pad should actually be way too much. The brake pad should almost touch the rotor when it sits there, when you squeeze it there isn't actually much movement, just lots of pressure. Are you sure you installed both pads correctly on each side of the rotor?

What kind of bike are we talking about? The brakes are very different on different bikes.

Did you just change the pads or did you do some other work too?