Re: Rear brake still sticking after servicing.
 

Brake lever has been taken apart along with everything else and all seems really good. When it's all empty of fuid the lever has a really good full range of smooth movement and MC piston is moving really nicely.


The brake won't come on by itself if the piston is pushed back in and then never pressed back.


Wheel turns fine on the Abba stand with no caliper fitted or with piston pushed fully back in.


How much is too much fluid in the system? Doesn't it have to be full with no air in there?

Re: Rear brake still sticking after servicing.
 

There should be an air space at top of reservoir.

Re: Rear brake still sticking after servicing.
 

Yep. I always take note of the max line in the reservoir with cap and diaphragm refitted.


Even with reservoir cap removed it was still binding on.


New / old caliper is now refitted and preliminary bleed is looking better. Leaving it to hang higher than the reservoir for a bit then will do a final bleed and report back. Looking like it may be an issue with the other caliper.

Re: Rear brake still sticking after servicing.
 

Older caliper is now back on the bike, including the original piston and new seals. Much better. The piston is visibly moving back a couple of mm. Pads still drag ever so slightly as is normal, but not clamping on when brake is released.
I wish I had worked out the reason for the other caliper having problems. The only thing I can guess is that the recesses that the seals sit in were too slack to lock the seals on to the piston, so no pressure to deform seals when braking and pull piston back when brake is released. So the piston was just being pushed out and not being pulled back. It did need a lot of dirt (white dust type) cleaning out of the seal recesses when I got it. Maybe enough material had corroded away to not hold the seals securely. I don't know the age or history of that caliper as it was second hand when I got it to replace the cross threaded one that I have now fixed and refitted.


Thanks all for the help and input. Quite a few bits of info and things to look out for have cropped up in this thread and feel like I've learnt a lot in the last couple of days of repeat bleeding and refitting!

Re: Rear brake still sticking after servicing.
 

Take Biblio's advice as well and lower the rear brake lever.You shouldn't really be using the rear brake in excess on a modern bike like the SVs.

I basically only use my rear brake for slow speed manoeuvring control or when doing my monthly,"Emergency Braking" test.This is just a thing I do to test my braking system so I know it's optimal and train my Emergency-Stop technique.

I have a couple of nice straight long country roads not far from me that at the right time have no traffic on them and no side roads for a long way.I use these for my Brake-Test.None of us expect to be in an Emergency Braking system so I think it's prudent to train for it to lessen the possibility of,"Panic Braking".

I also emulate,"ABS" braking by pull and release/pedal and release so as not to lock the rear wheel and see how fast I can stop safely in a straight line.On my SV650 I can pull-up in a very short distance even from 50/60/70 miles an hour :thumbsup:

HTH :)

Re: Rear brake still sticking after servicing.
 

The rear brake pedal is already set as low as it can go. I have to have it set like that or my foot points upwards when using the brake with the Buell lower pegs I've got fitted. I'm similar and only really use the rear brake for slow manouvering and coming to a stop. Sometimes blip it to flash the brake lights if engine braking. Most of the time my foot is back out of the way though.


Good call on practicing emergency braking too. I usually do mine a few times on the the way out on a straight stretch of road from my house as it serves a dual purpose and helps warm tyres a bit too. Good to get that muscle memory engrained in the brain of progressively squeezing the front to load the tyre.



All good advice. Cheers.

Re: Rear brake still sticking after servicing.
 

Presacaly :cool:

It's also good to know how the rear reacts to a rear wheel lock-up.

Re: Rear brake still sticking after servicing.
 

There'll most likely be some horrific dirt in the line. Have you changed it? If not, whip it off and blast it through with an air line. My VFR750 did this until I cleared the line out, some hilariously snotty looking crap flew out, along with lots of bits of black stuff. Wasn't nice, worked perfect after I performed this task though.

Re: Rear brake still sticking after servicing.
 

I will blip my rear brake as well, the engine braking is so good that you can slow down pretty damn quick without showing brake lights, it is wise to at least show some sign that you are slowing down.

Re: Rear brake still sticking after servicing.
 

Yep, it was a new Hel line fitted recently. Swapped out caliper has sorted the problem, so either it's the other caliper or some coincidence that happened during the swap around.