Front brake 'freeplay'.
 

I know the SV has never been cited as having awesome brakes, but I wondered if there was a way of removing the 'freeplay' in the front lever. The brakes don't seem to activate until the lever is almost half way through its travel. The lever doesn't reach the handlebar, and the bike still stops perfectly adequatley, but I want to feel the brakes bite as soon as I start to pull in the lever.

I fitted braided lines last year and replaced the caliper seals this Spring. The system was bled fully in May when I replaced the pads. There doesn't seem to be any leaks from the master cylinder, and I'm sure there is no more air in the lines, so is it possible to get the brakes to start biting at the beginning of the lever travel?

There is always freeplay, its a mix of the cylinder & calipers that do it. Proper 4pot calipers have less freeplay before they start braking.

I am not 100% sure why it is but i thing that a little of the freeplay is there so that when you release the leaver it pulls the pistons back a little, not sure though.

Re: Front brake 'freeplay'.
 

In a word, No.

I would just re-bleed a little just to make sure. The pivot(the bit that makes contact with the master cylinder) is prone to wear on high milage bikes i beleive(or heavily commuted bikes), also the problem is higlighted with after market levers of certain brands. If running Suzuki levers and all is good, its just one of those things that you live with.

I did find that if you happened to replace the brake leaver with the suzuki 4 click then it had loads of free play, you need to make sure that the lever is a 6 click one. I did it and it was just bad.

It's just that the CBR600RR I rode practically stopped when I touched the lever, never mind pulling it in! (OK, a gross exaggeration but being used to the SV, that's how it felt at first.) There seems to be almost no freeplay at all, and I understand that it has radial 4-pots, I just thought I could get the SV a little tighter. It is a 6-click lever on position 1.

Bikes with Radial MC/Brakes are a diffrent thing and change the way the lever operates and feals. Mabey you want to upgrade the MC, but the brakes on an SV still give a little spungy feel vs. 4/6 pot brakes.

I think I'll just live with it then if that's the case. Like I said, it does stop perfectly adequately, it was just something I wanted clarified more than anything. Thanks both for the super fast responses.

I felt even on full adjustment, mine didn’t have enough ‘span’. So I cut a little square of alli and wedged it in between the leaver and the adjuster, essentially padding it out. Works a treat and bearing in mind that the return spring keeps it under constant compression, it isn’t going anywhere :)

I got mine to feel really sharp with new pads and a bleed but once the pads have worn a bit you'll never get them super-sharp again no matter how much bleeding you do (believe me, i've tried :evil: )

Thats because of the calipers and the piston travel.