My Tiger 800XC Adventure

.....yet

of course..

Brake lines fitted. Went better than I anticipated. Had to do some alterations to the fork guards but its all good.




Not very happy with my brake bleeding, its got air in the line which I can't seem to bleed out, not too bad but brakes a slightly spongy.....might be a trip to the Tiger shop to get the pro's to bleed it.

do it right mate

dealertool (or a dealer)

dont piss around with brakes.

Have you tried the cable tie trick, lock the lever back to the grip with medium pressure overnight with a tie it allows any air to escape past the Piston seals. It worked many atime with poor BMW brakes in the stealership.

There's no need for dealertool to bleed the brakes unless you want to flush the abs modulator. Changing the lines won't have effected that at all. If you are really having trouble try a 50ml syringe and suck from caliper. Do this several times and you pretty much are sorted. Also leave overnight with brake lever applied . This opens up the master cylinder to the line and allows small bubbles to slowly rise over several hours.

i note the 2012 tiger service manual is now available for free on manualslib.com. it prescribes what the manufacturer recommends.

great minds think alike....was the last thing I did before giving up for the day. I think the long loop cable (1.2m) has probably got some air at the top of the loop. Hopefully it will get pushed to the end of the line overnight. I did the reverse feed with a big syringe to prime the lines. It has always worked for me in the past to push the air out...but not this time.

yep, I'm hoping not to have to play with the ABS but I do have tiger tool which has the ABS bleed app. I'm not too worried about it, I've bleed loads of brakes but this is the first time with the Tiger. If I can't get it sorted the brakes are fine to get me to the dealer as a last resort. I won't take any chances with spongy brakes as @wairau pointed out. I do like the high guard look though

The OCTBL (overnight cable tie on the brake lever) trick worked a treat. Brakes are now sweet. Haven't taken it for a test ride so not sure what the ABS light is gonna do but am assuming it will be fine. OBDII and Tiger Tool is at the ready if it isn't

You should still do a flush. The tying in of the brake lever only pressurises the system & pushes the air into the brake fluid. Next time you heat the brake fluid up, It'll come back out of suspension.

The idea that it allows little bubbles to go out of the lines into the mcylinder is mostly a fallacy.

they feel pretty good...actually better than they were...new fluid maybe. A careful test ride will tell. I have no problem dropping into the dealers for a quick check over.

You can do the flush yourself. Once the air is in suspension it should bleed right out. Do it now, rather that come into a hot corner, & discover you've spongy/no brakes.

last year i replaced the brake fluid and bled the brakes on my 2014 fireblade (abs model). it has about 10 bleed nipples scattered about the bike and a rather convoluted process to make the abs gear do its thing for each nipple. thankfully no proprietary software required, just had to make up a wire with pins to jump 2 terminals in the appropriate plug in the loom.

i was astounded the amount of air i got out the abs gear and associated plumbing. its a different bike now, better than when new.

Thanks Boxa you just wasted an hour of my life checking with Google of the meaning of life and cable tieing the brake lever I'm none the wiser as there are so many contradictory answers, this was normal procedure for older bikes that wouldn't bleed up and you would normally see air bubbles come into the reservoir when the tie was released the next day and these bikes never came back with poor brakes.

@Kempy , never a waste if you make an informed choice . Remember, every thing you read on the internet is worth exactly what you paid for it...

I had a second opinion on my brake 'feel' and they said it was great. Its funny how the mind plays tricks on ya when ya bleed brakes. @Box'a'bits "flush" was what I'd already done....so he is right about the advice on the net being worth what you paid for it

LED bar light has arrived. It looks the part but havent wired it up yet to see how bright it is. I had to move the horn back 30mm to fit the LED but there was loads of room for that; made a simple bracket rather than mod the stock. All my mods are reversible so the bike can be returned to stock with no scars....well except the painted bits but then they can easily be repainted black. Having said that the Tiger is a keeper for me so it's unlikely to ever be de-modded



After looking up the light laws it seems I can't hook it to the high beam if my bike already has two headlights, bikes are only allowed two high beams. It could become a fog light though or a daytime running light wired to the low beam. Both require a seperate on off switch which is easy enough to sort.

I've bought a 6 way LED fuse block which I'll use to rewire the two power points for heated clothing fitted by the PO as well as a designated GPS cable and the LED bar light. The LED will be run through a Relay to the fuse block. Lots of wiring to do but the one thing the Tiger has is loads of space to fit everything.

Have a new exhaust on order from the UK to replace the whopping stocker. So that will be about it as far as mods go.......until something else catches my eye

I'm sure I've said similar things before

You sure about that headlight law thing? I've heard all sorts of weird things and issues about lights on bikes...

My Denali's are hooked to the highbeam (but also have a switch so don't have to come on when highbeam on) and I've had no problems with WOF's.