Today sees the last of the general maintenance on Ruby before The Trip.
I picked up a pair of rear brake pads- these seem to wear out quicker than the front ones, maybe because there are just two but there are four in the front, and quite likely because I use the rear more, for example, entering corners in the twisties.
The knuckle busting part of the job is getting the pistons back in the caliper to accommodate the new thicker pads. As a general rele, you won't hurt metal parts if you beat them with wooden tools, whereas metal on metal can do grievous harm.
So I made up these to long wedges. The big one goes in the piston side to get the first pad in, then it starts pulling the caliper back over the disk from the rear to fit the other pad. The smaller wedge follows the thick one in to get the final bit of space.
A handy point to note is you can see the pad seating from the opposite side of the bike.
Hence in this pic you can see it hasn't seated high enough.
You can get a similar view for the front ones on the ST1300 because the calipers are slightly staggered.
There are cleaner jobs, but few with as good an access.
