Changing the break pads question

[Rubberdown]

Have 20k km-s on my bird. Yesterday I started to hear some slight squeaking from the front during breaking. I think it is time to change the front pads (bike still has the factory pads on). What is the average lifetime of the factory pads (I am fairly easy on the bike) in your experience?

Also, how big of an endeavor is the break bad change ? I am guessing all I need to do is removing the calippers on both sides, maybe there is a pin to remove too ? Then put in the new pads. Do you guys put any compound on the other sides of the pads to prevent squeaking ?

Thanks.

Henrik

Montreal

[XX]

imho, you'd prolly benefit from changing all of them at this time.

the brake pads are pretty easy, i'm an ameteur (sp?) and i survived!

you basically remove a pad pin and pull the pads out! there's more involved, but for the mechanically disinclined, that's the simple direction.

i've only done my rear pads, but i spose the fronts are the same, and you don't have to remove them.

re-use the shims that the oems come with, although i didn't and don't notice a difference.

use some brake grease on the non-disc side, i used synthetic, and no, i wouldn't recommend wd40.

i also didn't have to do any bleeding.

good luck!

[Warchild]

Have 20k km-s on my bird. Yesterday I started to hear some slight squeaking from the front during breaking.

Hmmmmm... 12.5K miles on your bike seems a little early for brake pads, but the squeaking means something.

I'm betting it means that your outer brake pad on the left caliper has worn down on one end, and you're hitting up against the backing plate, and there's your squeek.

If this is the case, your pad will look something like mine below. These are the pads from the left caliper at approx 23,000 miles (top one was the inner pad, bottom one is the outer pad). As you can plainly see, the outer pad depicts abnormal wear from one end of the pad to the other.

The speculation is that this wear is due to normal articulation of the LBS system (when the caliper "rotates" upward to engage the secondary master cylinder). I dunno about this personally, but it sounds likely enough.....

[xrated]

Having just changed mine about an hour ago, I experience the same uneven wear issue that Warchild and others have noted. I had 15K miles on mine and probably could have easily gone 20K miles, with the exception of the left outer that he has pictured. I really didn't want to have to mess with changing brake pads in the middle of the riding season so I did them now.

Oh BTW, EBC HH's front and rear.

[XX]

wow my km to miles conversion is way off... they are right, 12k may be a little but it does depend on your braking habits.

let us know how it turns out!

[Pete in PA]

EBC HH for me also. If you want to wear ALL your front pads down evenly instead of one worn out and the other with half it's life left. Do what I do. Periodically pull all front pads out and put the left ones in the right caliper and the right ones in the left caliper.

If you follow one pad through this change you will see it go from being on the piston side to the inactive side and also changes it from the (master cylinder caliper) to the regular one.

After going to EBC brakes at 12k miles, (factory ones very uneven wear) I am now at 34k miles and all pads same thickness and about halfway down. :grin: :grin:

Only takes 5 minutes to change them, pistons don't have to be relocated like putting on new brakes.

Unfortunately this doesn't work for the rear. You can't swap left to right. I have thought about including the rear in the rotation but haven't done it yet.