Strange brake pad wear

[Knaapie]

Hi all.

Got an issue with the wear of my brake pads. The brake pads of my left brake caliper (seen from the riders position) are wearing uneven, or better, crooked (not sure if that's correct english though :D)!

The brake pad that is on the right side of the disc is only 2mm thick on the top and 3mm thick at the bottom. The pad that is moved by the pistons has the reverse wearing pattern (3mm on the top, 2mm at the bottom). I clean my calipers at least once of twice a year and always put a little copper grease on the pins on which the brake pads are 'sliding'.

I had the same problem with my first set of brake pads (only the left caliper) and now with the second set the same problem again! :( Because the calipers were pretty dirty when I replaced the pads in april 2006, I thought that was the problem. The bike has run about 24.000 miles now and I do some track days with it.

The only thing that I can think of now is that the upper sliding pin of the left caliper has some sort of dent in it, in which the brake pad gets stuck.
Any help/suggestions would be welcome, because this problem is leaving me with a lot of still usable brake pads for the right brake caliper...

Thanks! :thumbsup:

[andyaikido]

Maybe one of the pistons has siezed. Do a search for maintaining brake calipers, you should get loads of info.

[Knaapie]

I don't think that's the case. June 2006 I serviced them and put special brake grease on the seals and pistons during reassembly. When I clean the calipers, I always push the pistons out one at a time, clean them and put a little brake grease on them before pushing them back. When I swopped brake pads last saturday I didn't had the idea that one of the pistons was stuck or had trouble coming out of the caliper. :-s

[andyaikido]

In that case you've got me stumped. You'll have to wait for someone more qualified to answer.

[Sid Squid]

The caliper isn't sliding on the mounting pins correctly, or the inner pad is hanging on a worn upper pin, (it gets a notch worn in it from brake torque).
Either way the uneven wear is nothing unusual as the SV doesn't have the most rigid caliper/mounting, and when the sliding pins get a bit worn, (specifically the holes in the caliper body oval a dab as it's aluminium and the pins are steel), then the caliper can twist a bit and cause the uneven wear you describe.

[Knaapie]

Ok, thanks Sid. I'll try to find an extra set of calipers than, because the parts I need are very expensive...:eek:

[r4ce_e3nd]

Knaapie, als je nog op zoek bent naar remklauwen en de klauwen van de nieuwe SV zijn dezelfde als de oude, dan heb ik een setje te koop. ;) Meer info: http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=87147
Laat maar iets weten indien je geïnteresseerd bent. Ik heb er trouwens onlangs nog nieuwe dichtingen in gestoken en het probleem van u heb ik nooit gemerkt.

In English: I have a set of calipers for sale :p

[kcowgergmm]

on my car i had a caliped seize up kinda but still worked and it wore the brake pads off at one hes of an angle like down to the metal in the front and like 6mm in the back replaced the caliper and it worked great then

[Knaapie]

Knaapie, als je nog op zoek bent naar remklauwen en de klauwen van de nieuwe SV zijn dezelfde als de oude, dan heb ik een setje te koop. ;) Meer info: http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=87147
Laat maar iets weten indien je geïnteresseerd bent. Ik heb er trouwens onlangs nog nieuwe dichtingen in gestoken en het probleem van u heb ik nooit gemerkt.

In English: I have a set of calipers for sale :p
Thanks for the offer, but I found a like new caliper set in the US with about 1500 miles on them.

I do have another question at my side about these slider pins. Do you need to grease them with a little copper grease of could that be a cause of the problem as well? I looked around at a nearby dealer and at new SV's the slider pins aren't greased.

[r4ce_e3nd]

No problem. Good luck with it ;)