I’m not sure that I can claim to have achieved this. When I dismantled the bike, I removed the three discs (2 on the front wheel and one at the back) and their callipers. The Guzzi has an unusual brake arrangement; the foot pedal controls the rear brake and one of the callipers at the front, and the handlebar lever brakes the other front disk. So, I needed to decide whether to retain this arrangement or not. The alternative would have been to revert to a more ‘normal’ arrangement that removed the linking arrangement. In the end, I decided to refurbish ‘as was’, but to replace all of the flexible hoses. In any case, I had to replace the handlebar-mounted master cylinder, having removed the brake lever and attached switches and wiring. Next, the work was to clean everything thoroughly, stripping the various parts as I went, rebuilding them and then, after reassembling (with a new front master cylinder) bleeding the arrangement so that it all worked nicely again. Bleeding the brakes on the foot-brake controlled arrangement is a nightmare – there seems like miles of brake pipe, and there are several places to bleed air from. So that’s the reservoir, the rear calliper, the pressure dividing valve, and the front calliper. And it makes it slightly more effective if you can have the part that you’re bleeding at the top, in the right alignment (i.e. with the bleed nipple at the top). Filling new brake hoses can be tricky as well, and don’t forget that brake fluid is nasty stuff that strips paint. I bought new flexible hoses, so everything ought to work nicely.
This picture shows the brake pressure divider, which connects to the foot master cylinder, rear calliper and one front calliper. You can also see that it includes the brake pressure switch (clue: electrical connections). In the picture also is the left hand side of the battery.