calling brake pad experts

Hello

I changed the brake lines on my fazer 1000 (rubber to braided). It was
a bugger to bleed, but I've now got front and rear good and solid.

The rear is now about the best rear brake I've had on a bike (In fact
I need to be careful until I get used to it - my previous rather deft
"use a little bit of back brake", now appears to be "stamp on the back
brake as hard as you can to make sure the wheel locks").

However, the front is less impressive. The lever is rock hard after
only about 1 cm of travel, but the brakes actually seem worse at
stopping the bike. It's hard to describe, but I find I need to pull a
lot more than I'd expect.

I upgraded my previous bike (fazer 600) to braided and the front was
perfect (never seemed to get the air out the back though), and I have
a BMW with braided hoses (admitedly also with servo), so I know what
good solid brakes should feel like, but mine just don't feel good.

I suspect some brake fluid might have got onto the front pads, but not
much - maybe a drip or three from the nipple. I know plenty more went
on the rear (like I say, the bleeding was a nightmare), and the rear
is fine. Is brake fluid that bad for pads?

If so, any ideas before I swap out the pads - e.g. is there a magical
thing that will clean any fluid contamination off the pads, or will
any brake fluid have "soaked in" by now? (I changed the pads about
2-3k miles ago so there is plenty of pad left).

cheers
Darren

 

Aerosol of brake cleaner[1] and some medium wet and dry to take any glaze
off the pads.

[1] - Available at most garages and autoparts shops.

--

Cheerz - Brownz
http://www.brownz.org/
'89 K100RS 8v
'53 R53 JCW

 

Brake fluid is a thin oil and as such about as "bad for pads" as you
can get. I'd suggest that if you've managed to contaminate the pads
when bleeding the brakes (no matter how much of a "nightmare" the job
was) that you get SWK to do it for you in future.

If you want to make it easy for yourself in future, get a Mityvac:

http://www.mityvac.com/user_manuals/07000-06820.pdf (p.20 et seq)

It will have soaked in. That's what it does. You can try aerosol
brake cleaner, but they'll never be right. Use the brake cleaner on
your discs, too - before you fit new pads.

 

Thanks for the replies - I guess I'll be replacing the pads!

Regarding getting SWK in and the mightyvac, I'd claim to be at least a
little bit SWK, although of course the evidence on this occasion
clearly suggests otherwise, and I am blaming the mightyvac as the
source of my troubles!

I've bled brakes / replaced pipes on many cars / motorbikes /
pushbikes without too much trouble. My preferred weapon of choice is
the old fashioned hose in a jam jar, for tricky ones I've been known
to revert to my easibleed, but I didn't have a spare reservoir cap to
drill through for my fazer, so I figured I'd try the mightyvac. This
sucked boom boom). Too much air pulled past the nipple threads so I
had to resort to PTFE tape. It was when removing the nipples to apply
the tape that a drible or two ran down the brakes.

I was surprised the DOT 4 apeared so problematic - I figured it is so
water soluable that I'd hoped I'd washed it off quickly enough. I
hadn't realised it was oil based, but that explains the poor braking
alright.

cheers
Darren

 

A rumor I heard is that it can weaken the bond between pad & metal backing.

A truth I heard is that it can make the missus fucking livid.

 

You might overheat the glue. Put them in the dishwasher instead.

 

I've used a blowlamp in the past. It worked fine.

 

Hmmm it somewhat depends on the pads. Old fashioned organics don't like
brake fluid much and seem to suffer long term. Sintered EBC's shrug it
off and can be burned/sprayed clean.

 

Tin with some flaming thinners in the bottom for me.

This was on old, riveted shoes though.

P.

 

Couldn't you think of a better swear word than that? This is ukrm isn't it?