So I'm doing my bearings, popped out the dust cover, no problem, knocked out the old bearings, no problem (sorry Dave). Found out my wife likes to get frisky when I'm wearing my coveralls!?!? Heeeey, noooo problem :cool: . Sent Tina with the bearing numbers to a bearing place. Got two new front, two rear and the sprocket bearing. All for 33 CDN. Saved about 20 bucks total from buying at the dealer(who was selling generic).

Cleaned and installed, no problem. Cleaned up the rotors with brake cleaner afterwords. Went out for a test drive and laid on the front brakes. Just about had my lungs to inside out by the stopping power. Holy shit.

So, word of advice clean your disk rotor with brake cleaner regularly. Gets the street crap off them.... Oh, and if your wife is frisky, go with it.

You obviously pushed the pistons back in when you removed the calipers, didn't you?

My brakes felt awesome again after replacing my tire on Friday, but I still want more braking power.

Maybe de-linking will be in my future, after all............


BTW, congrats on having sex with your wife. :lick:

There was a bearing shop near the Towanda town line on Rt.6, just a few miles from the hotel. Of course we didn't know the size, and they may not have been open anyway. I just checked the parts fiche, and it does not list the specs like the one for my KX250.
STeve

Push the pads back every 1k or so, you'll be surprised how it improves brake bite.

Why?

I've gotta add this to the FAQ...

Disc brakes work by very slightly retracting the pistons when you release pressure. This is caused by the shape of the lip on the piston seals. That lip gets "stuck" in a position and pulls them back farther than they need to be. If you manually move them and re-seat them by simply pumping the brakes back up, they will sit closer to the rotors.

How do u push the pads back w/o pulling the calipers? I noticed an incredible decrease in brake lever movement required when the calipers were removed to change tires.

GO MIKE AND TINA :!: coveralls huh :?:

My theory on this push the pistons in, get better brakeing is that from regular (hard) use you may slightly boil the fluid and get bubbles in the line. when you push the pistons in, you push fluid (and air) up the lines into the reservoir, then you pump up the brakes with only fluid, so you have just. reverse bled air out of your system.

btw you shoud clean the pistons first before pushing all that dirt into the dust seals. scotchbrite pads work great.

IMHO of course.

No, you're not boiling your fluid, unless Nicky Hayden has been riding your XX.

How to do it? Stick a screwdriver between the pad backing and rotor, twist gently and slowly. No, won't hurt the rotor, been doing it for a long time.

Is that a phillips head or flat?

Gotta agree, although I think it has more to do either with cleaning the rotors or getting fresh fluid in the lines. I just put the BT012SS tires on my '98 and on first ride the brakes were probably 50% better than when I took them off.

I have noticed on other bikes that when the pistons are compressed the fluid that returns to the reservior is nasty looking. Maybe we should all be changing our brake fluid with each tire change?

On many cars(VW's for example) the service manual recommends opening the bleed valve when pushing caliper pistons in. That way you get rid of the dirty fluid rather than pshing it back up into the system. Especialy important for ABS brakes.
mikeg