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Brake rotor pulsing - resolved

Re: Re:brake rotor ?

Zapa said:
Chuck in Indiana said:
I'll bet that if people put a dial indicator on many of the "warped" discs, they would find it's just pad buildup.
In fact that was the case with my discs. I'm not unhappy with the full floating rivets I mounted, but in my case it wasn't a bobbins' problem.

I'm not yet 100% happy, as I'm using the same pads and they WILL leave buildup on the discs again. I have a slight pulse only noticeable at very low speeds (parking lot type) so I'll probably change the pads to EBC kevlar or something similar.
Try EBC FA244HH pads, they are sintered. This is what I have been using on my Norge for the last 15K miles, best brakes ever and not a hint of pulsating.
 
Re: brake rotor ?

I have no doubt that some disks are truly warping, but some may be just suffering from buttons locking up or uneven pad deposits. I have not had any issues with mine and I sometimes use them quite hard, but as a rule I am not a heavy braking guy on the street.
 
Re: Re:brake rotor ?

azccj said:
Try EBC FA244HH pads, they are sintered. This is what I have been using on my Norge for the last 15K miles, best brakes ever and not a hint of pulsating.
Thanks for the tip! :D
 
Re: Re:brake rotor ?

GrahamNZ said:
Chuck in Indiana wrote:
Discrivetlooseningprocedure.jpg

so what exactly are you doing in this picture to "loosen the rivets"?
 
Re: brake rotor ?

very cool
so just a smack, rotate, smack, rotate!

cheers!
 
Re: brake rotor ?

Mackers said:
How loose should they be? Can you rotate them with your fingers?
In their optimal state you should be able to rotate them with your fingers, yes.
 
Re: brake rotor ?

the more my brakes pulse the harder i grab them. been doing it since the bike was new. figured fuck it, don't care. she stills stops good.

she is due for a big service after the winter. maybe I'll give the pads recommended above a try.
 
Re: brake rotor ?

Ha, they say great minds think alike...... :shock: I have been doing exactly the same, the bike stops on a dime so who cares if there is a bit of a shudder.

PS: yeah yeah yeah I know - fools seldom differ as well, but hey I'm happy.
 
Re: brake rotor ?

I've got a few guzzi's, all the same brakes. Ride mostly too fast, and brake too hard, lots of hills and hard braking, no pulsing on any of them. the bikes have between 8K and 35K miles of the same style of riding. I had a number of japanese bikes warp rotors, but the guzzi's dont seem to for me. I use EBC HH pads, never wash the suckers, never do anything except replace the pads. I wonder if there any correlation between flatlanders (indiana Chuck) and hill/mountain riding.
 
Re: brake rotor ?

guzzi jon said:
I've got a few guzzi's, all the same brakes. Ride mostly too fast, and brake too hard, lots of hills and hard braking, no pulsing on any of them. the bikes have between 8K and 35K miles of the same style of riding. I had a number of japanese bikes warp rotors, but the guzzi's dont seem to for me. I use EBC HH pads, never wash the suckers, never do anything except replace the pads. I wonder if there any correlation between flatlanders (indiana Chuck) and hill/mountain riding.

There is. The harder you use the brakes, the less likely the chance of the pulsing. Hard braking keeps the rotor buttons moving, so no problems with a pulsing brake. When mine started to pulse, I found some good downhill runs and did some heavy braking to get thing moving freely. No pulsing since.
 
Re: brake rotor ?

Ever since loosening the rotor mountings a squillion kiloclickeroons ago the brakes on my Breva are like silk. Smooth, sensitive and strong. And, yes, I am a hard braker. Brevas are more satisfying when being braked hard than when being accelerated hard. By comparison Buells are the opposite..........Brake hard and often is THE MESSAGE.
 
Re: brake rotor ?

My two cents ...

Bought a 2007 B11 in Seattle this September and took it on a long trip south along the Oregon / California coast (lots of turns and hills). Within 1000 miles the front brakes began to pulse - brake harder and they pulsed harder. Warped rotor(s) must have been the cause. I had the rotors replaced at the break in service about 2000 miles ago and they've been fine ever since. Given the number of posts on this topic, Brembo must have had some manufacturing problems in the rotors - speculation of course.
 
Re: brake rotor ?

john zibell said:
guzzi jon said:
I've got a few guzzi's, all the same brakes. Ride mostly too fast, and brake too hard, lots of hills and hard braking, no pulsing on any of them. the bikes have between 8K and 35K miles of the same style of riding. I had a number of japanese bikes warp rotors, but the guzzi's dont seem to for me. I use EBC HH pads, never wash the suckers, never do anything except replace the pads. I wonder if there any correlation between flatlanders (indiana Chuck) and hill/mountain riding.


There is. The harder you use the brakes, the less likely the chance of the pulsing. Hard braking keeps the rotor buttons moving, so no problems with a pulsing brake. When mine started to pulse, I found some good downhill runs and did some heavy braking to get thing moving freely. No pulsing since.

Agreed. When my brakes started pulsing, it was after 2 days of riding in the rain in Nova Scotia.
 
Re: brake rotor ?

Frequent hard braking has several advantages:

It ensures that the brake is working at its best.
It helps the rider to learn the brakes' capabilities and how to stop quickly in an emergency.
It prevents pad-material buildup on the discs, which gentle-use-only can cause, giving the impression of warped rotors.
If helps keep the mounting rivets from siezing, impeding rotors from being semi-floating and self-aligning. As above.

Truly warped rotors are rare - unless you own a Buell with a ZTL front brake........
 
Re: Re:brake rotor ?

GrahamNZ said:
Chuck in Indiana wrote:
I'll bet that if people put a dial indicator on many of the "warped" discs, they would find it's just pad buildup.

Agreed. Some of you may remember an old post of mine where I showed how I dialled the discs and loosened the rivets. Many km later I'd rate my Breva's brakes as one of its strongest points.

IMHO very few discs are truly warped, but many suffer from the rivets being too tight and not allowing the discs to be semi-floating as designed, and many suffer from pad material impregnation though not getting enough regular hard use.

Of course, discs can become truly warped and common causes are;
Being bumped, especially during tyre changing.
Trying to ride off with a disc lock in place.
Parking a bike while the discs are extremely hot, although this is rarely an issue with road bikes.

Initial brake jerkiness on a bike which was parked wet can be just localised surface rust where the pads have been. Yes, SS does rust slightly.

For new members, here is the info again.

measuringrunout.jpg

Measuring for runout

Rightfrontdiscrunout1006.jpg

All good here

Leftfrontdiscrunout1006.jpg

Good here too.

Frontdiscrivet.jpg

But the rivets were too tight. Loosening them cured the problems completely.
Discrivetlooseningtools.jpg

Discrivetlooseningprocedure.jpg


Graham

Mine started pulsing (noticible at low brake pressures). Tried cleaning the discs and a dose of heavy braking but still there - not a safety issue as utimately I can stop fast when required but very annoying when slowing smoothly in traffic.

I already tried some gentle persuasion of the rivets while the discs are still fitted to the wheel. It created some movement where before there was none. However the pulsing hasnt gone and i'm guessing i didnt loosen them enough. Exactly how much "easing" did you give them rivets with that heavy hammer ? I looks like you attacked them from the back side ( :sick: ) is that just for for ease of mounting the discs/rotors on your jig or so the rivets fit in the sockets used?

If further easying of the rivets fails to cure it i will try your dial setup and see if it is down to warped disc or discs, though as you say this should be unlikely. My B11 is non-ABS and In my view the option of ABS means the discs specified should have been thoroughly tested to the limits when the ABS was tested so shouldnt be prone to warping.

Art
 
Re: brake rotor ?

Art,

my B11 had the same symptoms as yours, annoying pulse at slow speed. Heavy breaking did cure mine, but it took a couple of weeks with constant heavy braking to cure the symptoms. If you only did it once or twice,, keep it up for a while just to try and save yourself some fiddling.

Robert
 
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