Twinpot Brake upgrade on 78 Skunk

[tkent02]

The 14mm may or may not work. I have had them both ways, not sure why.

[mattfeet]

I had an upgraded 14MM Nissin unit but I just cant build up enough pressure for a good lever feeling. It WORKS but not overly well.

[tkent02]

I had an upgraded 14MM Nissin unit but I just cant build up enough pressure for a good lever feeling. It WORKS but not overly well.

Talk to me, I might need it for my 550 with one brake.

[mattfeet]

I bought it for my CB360 project and swapped it over to my GS for this project. Its in great shape and works perfectly fine. $100 shipped and its yours. They got for $140-150 new.

Matt

[salty_monk]

Original Suzuki 2 brake & Kawasaki 2 brake are 5/8" bore.

This is the one I use:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/08-2008-Kawasaki-EX650-Front-Brake-Lever-Master-Cylinder-Ninja-650-S044543-16B-/111318795755?pt=Motorcycles_Parts_Accessories&hash=item19eb1e05eb&vxp=mtr

[mattfeet]

Yea, my new one is 5/8. Should be here Wednesday.

[mattfeet]

GOt my new MC in today and it made a world of difference. Went for the maiden voyage and she stops on a dime (compared to old, that is). Just want to bleed the brakes a bit better for a firmer lever and Ill be one happy customer.

Matt

[Guest]

For the Canucks here, where are you buying your brake pads for this conversion? It is EBC #129 and I want the HH compound, but don't have a decent mail order source north of the 49th.


Thanks,
Mark

[salty_monk]

The stock Tokico brake pad is a good alternative to the EBC HH - they are both sintered.

The HH does bite a little harder though.

If you drop down to Organic pads you can really feel the difference (though it is still a lot better than stock).

With the latest kit stock bolts can be used. In the beginning I supplied the fine thread hardware as it was an odd length (45mm) due to the fact that the Aluminium brackets were about twice as thick. They were sort of difficult to get here in the US. I recommend a bit of blue loctite on these bolts. Looks like the Kawi bolts used in the install above but the Zuki bolts work too.

A lot of hardware stores have 40mm & 50mm fine thread M10's & nuts.

[mattfeet]

So I picked up a 16mm MC and the brakes are still pretty spongy. The lever has about 1.0" travel before the brakes even grab. Do I need to re-bleed? I haven't even seen a bigger MC than 16mm so I can't imagine that's my issue. Thoughts?

Matt

[Grimly]

If you re-bleed and the problem is still there, then check for lost motion in your calipers and pay particular attention to wear in the sliding pins/holes. It's just in the nature of sliding calipers that wear happens and it's possible the ones you got might be high mileage.

[mattfeet]

They only had ~8k miles on them, single owner bike. To verify, where specifically are you talking about?

Matt

[Grimly]

They only had ~8k miles on them, single owner bike. To verify, where specifically are you talking about?

Matt

Where the body of the caliper is mounted to the bracket, it's coupled via a pair of sliding pins - either the pins or the hole in the bracket wears, or both do. 8K miles is likely ok though, but if they were never properly lubed or checked, who knows what state they're in.
Is it similar to this one, from an '88 ZX600?

[mattfeet]

Yea, same caliper. I took them apart, re-lubed, and replaced all seals when I got them. Everything there looked ok to me but I also wasn't looking for damage, either.

Matt

[Grimly]

If the pins have more than a smidgeon (technical term) of side-to-side play, that will translate into lost motion as the caliper will rock on the pins initially. As the caliper and pads bed in, it might even improve a bit, but the wear is still there. Eventually it will lead to uneven wear on the pads and they'll wear in a wedge shape, leading you to dumping the pads before you get the full mileage out of them.