The latest NC30 update is pretty pedestrian: it got new front brake disks and pads. The old disks were below the service limit and the play in the “floats” was enough that the wheel could move noticeably with the front brake held in. The pads were also hopelessly oily from the leaked fork oil, so even though I cleaned them out, the disk would get oily immediately. Time for a replacement.

I got 2 new brake disks from EBC and new pads. For such few parts, it was one of the most expensive maintenance items so far, the pair of disks were over $400… I hope I don’t have to do that often. Happily, there were no snafus on this one — the new disks bolted right on, the old pads came out, no sign of bad seals so I wiped out what gunk was around the pistons and put the new pads on. While I was at it, I flushed out the old brake fluid, too. The most exciting part was lifting the front wheel up by hoisting the bike with a set of straps around the triple clamp and a ceiling beam!

The new brake disk looks pretty spiffy with the gold colored center.

After taking it for a test ride, I’m very happy with how they feel. On my old Ninja 250, putting a new disk on resulted in basically no braking power at all initially until the pads had worn in. Here, I just did a couple low speed stops going down the street and they were feeling perfectly functional. (Maybe that’s what you get with 8 pistons instead of 2…)

Now it should be perfectly road worthy. I was looking forward to taking it up to SpaceX for the first time, I’ve been keeping a running commentary on bike restoration with some other bikers there so it would be nice to finally get to show them the result. However, there’s one little remaining issue: I need a new headlight bulb. The headlight is some Tyga special, and the bulb is weird 35/35W I’ve never seen before. It’s apparently common in Asia, but doesn’t seem possible to get in the US. I just ordered one from Tyga in Thailand (they even offered free shipping!). The headlight is pretty much a piece of shit, it’s poorly attached and has no aiming capability, but there’s not much I can do about that without replacing the top fairing. I’m not quite ready for that yet, there’s plenty of other things on the plate…