Wooden Brakes, Pointy SV.

[Nutsinatin]

Right it's a K9 pointy, I had a strange wear pattern emerging on my front right disk (stock, done 20,000 miles - plenty left in it though) and turns out the top piston was seized in the calliper. I forced the piston out by holding the other piston in whilst squeezing the lever. I cleaned it with brake cleaner and a toothbrush (with some 2000 grit wet and dry on a small corrosion patch) smeared some rrg on the pistons, added some copper grease to the backs of the pads (EBC HH sintered pads, done at least 8000 miles but loads left in them) and the pin that holds the pads in (retaining pin? What's it called?) put it all back together and everything moves freely. Repeated the process on the other side and went for a test ride.


The problem I have is that the brakes engage earlier than before and the lever goes firm very early in the travel, so it's near enough a case of brakes on or brakes off. However when I really squeeze the lever hard, but there's no more braking to be had and it's not great in terms of stopping power. The fluid was changed in June when I installed Hel lines and I bled them then, so no issues there. I also cleaned the disks with brake cleaner whilst I was down there.


I usually clean my callipers about every six months (before and after winter) and my rotors every month or two (get a lot of dirt from where I live and road dirt from the motorway) and haven't had this issue before. Early on with the SV I had braking issues with the soft front end, and just learning to squeeze the lever past the point when it feels firm. And I was fairly happy with them until the last few days.


So really what have I done to them, I've done 20 miles today using the brakes fairly excessively to get a feel for them but they aren't good. Do they need to bed in again or have I done something stupid. Any advice or explanation appreciated, thanks!

did you get any fluids on the pads, brake cleaner, anything? Also a lot of places say dont use anything on your discs... It does sound like lack of friction, like when you put in crap pads.

Had the same thing one of my supermotos and it turned out to be cast iron discs dont like ebc organic pads.. (yes I was trying to be cheap, lesson learned)

[Nutsinatin]

Pads were left facing each other in the tool box to protect the friction surfaces and I checked them before I put them back in and they looked fine. The pad and disk combination has been good for the last 8000 miles so I don't see it being that. I avoid cleaning my rotors but I get a build up of mud and road dirt that seems to deposit itself on the friction surfaces, with a noticeable fade in brake performance. Cleaning the disks seems allow the pads to clean themselves on the disk restoring performance pretty much immediately. I'm going for a 120 mile run this morning to see if that helps them. I'm just not sure what I've done differently as I've done this more than a few times before without issue. Thanks for your thoughts though!

The EBC HH are high performance pads. Not top line race pads anymore, but that's how they started out, and most club racers were using them 15 years ago. Some still do.
I had a similar problem (wooden feeling) on a bike I was alternately racing/street riding, and called EBC.
Their Tech guy told me to "use them hard, they'll come back", so I did, and they did.
It's worth a try. Just make sure you're not using them hard to avoid hitting something, just in case.

[mikerj]

Are you certain you put the pads back in exactly the same location they were removed from? If not than the different wear patterns will can give the brakes a dead feel.

[Nutsinatin]

They can only go in one way round so they're all as close as they can be to where they were, I've stuck 170 miles in since I cleaned them with a decent amount of hard braking, and they seem to be coming back to me. The lever is really firm and I've not got much light braking back yet but when I start to really squeeze it is starting to stop now and the brakes aren't feeling so wooden. There is now some response to how hard I squeeze, rather than just on or off. Thanks for all your advice so far!

[timwilky]

my experience of EBC HH was they didn't give me any real braking "feel" until they were hot, it is if they glaze and you need to work them

[admin]

Originally Posted by timwilky

my experience of EBC HH was they didn't give me any real braking "feel" until they were hot, it is if they glaze and you need to work them

My experience too.

sent via the klacks

[Viney]

My Double HH ate my discs! Didnt find them any different than most of the pads i use/used.

[Nutsinatin]

They are defiantly coming back to me now, think the firmness is just because they were overdue a clean and grease and this is what they should/used to feel like. And the woodenness is from the pads just needing to bed back in. I agree that they have more feel when warm but they do have reasonable feel when cold, and defiantly more bite and stopping power than organic pads. I just ate my way through those every few thousand miles, and I haven't seen much disk wear over the 8000miles I've had them so far. Thanks so much to you for your advice and opinions, guess it's just a good excuse to go out on the bike even more!