No insulators or shims on K5 rear brake pads?

Hi, can anyone confirm that K5 rear brake should have insulators and shims along with the pads? I've just stripped mine for a pad change. The dealer did them last time, and I'm surprised to find that there's no insulators or shims (they are shown in the K3- manual).

What are the the detrimental effects, if any, of not having these components in?
I am wondering whether the dealers couldn't retract the piston far enough to make room for the insulators and shims and binned them. I know they struggled because they had to keep the bike overnight rather than completing the job on the day I took it in.

While I'm on the subject - any top tips for retracting the piston, that don't involve completely removing the caliper?

[NedSVS]

Shims are on the parts fiche for this year, see here:

http://www.mrcycles.com/fiche_select...les&mfg=Suzuki

They are supposed to reduce squeal and insulate the caliper from heat - not sure how effective they are and I wouldn't overly concern myself about them being missing.

If your caliper is in really nice condition you can usually push the piston back with finger pressure. If I require a little more pressure I use some sort of makeshift lever. If the pads are ready for the bin I will lever onto them directly, if not I remove the pads and protect the piston faces with something like a bit of wood. If they are tight I would generally pump them out a little and clean of any corrosion with wire wool and apply a little silicone rubber grease before pushing the piston back again.

[timwilky]

Not sure about using a silicon based grease. Red rubber grease for brake seals is vegetable based

[NedSVS]

Originally Posted by timwilky

Not sure about using a silicon based grease. Red rubber grease for brake seals is vegetable based

Silicone greases are excellent for rubber and rubber with metal. They cause no rubber swelling that can occur with other greases and are chemical and high temperature resistant. As you say, red rubber grease is specifically for brake applications but I'd have no reservations about using either for this job.

[yorkie_chris]

Silicon grease can actually be too slippy, the bit of drag from the thicker RRG seems to pull the pistons away from the disc a little where the silicon stuff left them dragging slightly.

Thanks for the advice. I've finished the job. The piston only took a little more than finger pressure to get it back in. It didn't require enough force to make me worry about the condition of the caliper & piston.

What took me longest was seating the new pads. The Brake pad spring was a bit deformed and it took a while to get the pads seated properly in the caliper prior to rotating it into position. I'd like to replace the brake pad spring and "the retainer on the caliper bracket that the detent of the pad is seated onto". I'm not sure if those two items come as part of any kind of caliper service kit?

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Silicon grease can actually be too slippy, the bit of drag from the thicker RRG seems to pull the pistons away from the disc a little where the silicon stuff left them dragging slightly.

I don't quite follow you there Chris, surely additional drag (on the wall of the piston) would leave the pads dragging more (on the disk) rather than less?

[yorkie_chris]

with RRG the seals seemed to grip the piston slightly and so be deformed, applying a slight spring pressure to try and return the pistons maybe half a mm.

Now it may well be a peculiarity of my calipers or the alignment of saturn on that day, but I've since used RRG for them because a) I've got some and b) it's known to work perfectly.

[mikerj]

I bought a seal kit recently that actually came with a sachet of silicon grease. I always use silicon grease on the rubber slider "bush" anyway, RRG seems to dry out and make the sliders very stiff.