Re: Front Brake Problems
 

Then check the brakes are biting before moving the bike

Re: Front Brake Problems
 

Sid

I am having the same problems.
Just done a full strip and clean.Replaced all seals and pins with genuine Suzuki parts,got a tub of red grease,new HBC pads.Goodridge braided hoses.
All back together shiny and new looking. I used lookskyward1 methood of pressure bleeding, http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.p...highlight=tube and it works great, no air in the system

But still to much travel in the brakes.
Now to my point, i can,as you say, see the pistons being pulled back into the caliper after releasing the lever,so next time to aply the brake it has to far to travel before it makes contact with the discs.
Could i have put the seals in the wrong way around. It says in the Haynes,to fit the wider end of the seal outwards,but i couldn't see a wider end,so just fitted them anyway.

Thanks
Mike

Re: Front Brake Problems
 

Okay, you have been giving some possible reasons but the first thing is to actually do simple checks first(might be too late now)

Re pistons stick as mentioned by SS, you want to clean any crap off the pistons and see if all the dust seals are still seated as they should. In majority of cases stickig pistons are caused by one or two dust seal having turned themselves partially pulled out of the recess. Have a really good look as might mniss one that is just starting to be pulled out.

Well before doing that , lift the front end up and spin the wheel by to check it spins freely.

If all the seals)dust seals are still seated correctly) then could just be accumulated crap behind the seals which i turn causes the pistons not to move freely as they should hence the drag.

A little bit of drag won't cause any failure and should be okay o a ride out but saying that, with such matters one can only really give a true opinion in person. Dragging problems only get worse and usually the worst that could happen is the pistons get stuck, clamping pads to discs and are virtually impossible to move by hand. You need the engine to spin the wheel....don't ask how I know this haha :smt003

The above is obviously not ideal, won't necessarily kill you but need to seriously adapt your riding to get home ;)

Ps if they need a rebuild, make sure the recess for the seals gets a really good clean. Sounds obvious but pleanty of folks don't give it a good enough clean ...perhaps it's the scraping that puts them off hehe and only end up having same problem they started with.

Also a good idea to read the threads on the forum regards removing the pistons/rebuilding calipers. I actually hate started he job but once I've started I actually enjoy it...odd I know.

It's a beautiful sight seeing all your seals laid out(on a clean white surface) next to each other, ready to be lubed and inserted into athouroughly cleaned out recess.... with pistons ready to go in and being able to slide freely without resricted movement :cool:



Ben

Re: Front Brake Problems
 

Thaks again for the advice folks.

Well in the end I just bled them and probably pushed about two resevoirs worth of fluid through as I was not sure I actually had enough (only got a small bottle) to completely flush it and did not want to end up with an unrideable bike.

Both the bleed screws came out. One straight away the other after I added a bit of 3 in 1 and left it while I bled the other side.

Got a couple of tiny bubbles out of of one side; when I say tiny I'm talking about pin-head size as seen through the clear bit of tube I was bleading through. Got about a dozen similar bubbles out of the other side.

Probably psycological but the static travel felt better and it certainy stopped better on the road.

Next step is probably some new pads and a fluid change at the same time (note to self get bigger bottle of fluid). So given I managed not to make a complete hash of this, how hard is it to change your own front brake pads. Again, what bits are not as simple as Mr. Haynes would suggest "once bolt removed, simply slide fitting....." Or am I moving rapidly into the "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" territorty here?

All four pads seem to be pretty equally worn with about 2-3mm of meat left on them. Is that worn out or plenty left? Don't remember looking at new ones to see how thick they started out.

Cheers,
Mark