Brake woes who said its easy

Last friday night riding home and noticed a twittering when using rear brakes, had already bought 2 sets of pads, thought i'll strip the caliper off fit new pads and the check the front. Famous last words.

The screw in plug was seized in, tried penetrating oil, tried heat, tried cold shock aerosol, tried chiselling it round. Nothing was moving it. Ended up taking the caliper off and working on the bench, still not shifting. Looked at my watch, 8.45 time to go in leave the pentrating oil to soak overnight and get cleaned up, go to supermarket for a beer, 10 mins later wife asks 'are you going to the supermarket ?' my reply, no rush its not 9.00, 'it's 10 minutes to 10!' said sod it and had a whisky instead.

Next morning still no movement, ended up cutting hanger pin into 3 pieces, drilling the plug out and in the afternoon buy a new hanger pin. Home,remove pistons, clean out grooves and clean up pistons, rebuild and fit new pads, new pin and put it back with grease in place of plug. Went to front and took caliper off, slider seized solid ( caliper i got S/H last year), managed to get slider free next morning, cleaned up pistons, went to fit pads and they were another set of back pads! Found a better set of pads from the old caliper I still had and rebuilt. Spent the next couple of hours tryng to get a brake lever.

Left the levers tied to the handlebar overnight, bit better next mornig but not perfect. Been doing that everytimeits parked since and getting better.

It's only EZ when it goes smoothly, the rest falls under chit happens. BTDT more than once.

Air gets trapped at the brake master cylinder banjo bolt.If you pump the lever half a dozen times then crack open and re tighten the banjo bolt quickly it may help you get a better feel at the lever.Take precautions and cover the surrounding area to prevent the brake fluid getting on the paintwork.It comes out in spurts.
The wee hole in the middle of the slot on the screw in plug is to fit a punch in.A sharp clout with a punch is usually enough to get it turning.As you have found out its a very bad design and Honda now mostly use a rubber bung instead.

Those pesky screw in plugs gave me the same headache on my 750 Shadow. I bought a spare caliper assembly off eBay, but ended up selling the bike.
Jay.