Brake light reflector coating and fork squeaking

[Johnster]

Hello All,
  my brown '79 R65 is slowly making progress - the 'storage' oil and gas are drained, and I'm liable to try to fire the engine soon...
2 items weigh on my mind

1) the brake light - I broke the lens on the trailer home (Thanks to Re-psycle for the replacement....) and I've noticed that the silver plastic reflector thing is faded in a few areas.
  I could just drop $60 on an LED array, but for now I would like to re-paint (or polish) the existing reflector to gain a little brake light brightness - any ideas here ?  Aluminum foil ?  silver paint ?

2) Fork squeak - the bike has been sitting for 8 years or so, and every time you compress the front forks, there is a horrible groan - a low pitched squeak whenever the forks compress or rebound.  My plan was to just replace the fluid, cycle the forks a few times and see if it went away but I guess (from reading here) there are a few rubber washers that like to disintegrate and dissapear over time.  Any thoughts here ?  Is it worth just replaceing the fluid or am I going to end up opening up the forks and clean/inspect/replace everything anyway ?

  if I do have to open the forks, is there a Kit or any parts (other than a fork seal, that black/red rubber washer and a dust-seal) that I should buy ?  I did the forks on my '97 Katana once and did not like that one bit (I also had a .mil auto hobby shop at my disposal, so even with all the right tools...)

Looking forward to riding again.

-John

[Bob_Roller]

I would leave the reflector alone, it's just plastic, unless you recoat it, I think all you'll end up doing is degrading it even more than it is .

I have the Beacon II LED light assembly on my '81 and '82 R65's, my personal opinion, it's a worth while upgrade, I also do a lot of night condition riding .

If a previous owner has installed 'progressive' springs in the forks, it's common for them to emit a 'squeak' during full travel movements .

With a 'new' to me bike, I would remove the forks and disassemble them, check the condition of the internal parts and replace the 'consumable' rubber parts .

[Johnster]

I was considering just getting the shiniest can of silver spray paint, and blasting the reflector with that - it would make the faded areas reflect more light - I can't see any harm in this.

[Barry]

Agree with Bob on the reflector. Anything remotely abrasive will make it worse. You could consider replacing the bulb with something more efficient without going to an LED Array. There are halogen lamps available in the 15mm bayonet fitting. If you stick with a conventional brake light bulb make sure and get the right one. Brake lamps are  deliberately over run so that they produce more lumen's/ watt than the the running light at the expense of a shorter life something like 250 hours vs 2000 hours.

As the forks I'd strip them without question particularly as it's a 79 bike and may not have had the mods done. No great harm in flushing with new oil and riding the bike first to see how they behave. For parts you'll only need what has already been mentioned in the recent thread - topping out bushes and crush washers. I know there are kits for other forks but not this type to my knowledge.

[nhmaf]

The key thing with the rear brake light bulb - do NOT install a larger or higher wattage bulb!  With the rear brake light assembly, the outer edge of the glass bulb gets fairly close to the red plastic lens on the brake light.   I see many rear brake lights on airheads which have partially, or totally melted through the red lens because someone replaced the stock size/wattage bulb with a larger one.   The red plastic lense part is quite a bit more expensive to replace than a bulb.   I would just make sure you had a proper bulb in there and it was all clean until you save the money for the Beacon-2 LED replacement - I have one in my R65 and really consider it a significant upgrade.   I'll be getting another Beacon kit for my 1978 R100 soon.