Anyone try aftermarket brake master?

[chris032188]

My brake master / lever on my 88 gs450 are looking pretty crappy - I was thinking of replacing it with

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Brake-Maste...Parts_Accessories&hash=item4178d1e90e&vxp=mtr

Seems to be like 1/4 of the price of everywhere else.. Anyone have experience with these ebay masters?

 

[Nessism]

You might want to verify piston size before purchase. The stock master is 14mm.

 

[wymple]

I've bought several and never had a quality issue. Some are sold with right or left handed threads for mirrors, and with and without brake light switch built in. Make sure you hit the right button. We waited a month for one to arrive, and only a few days for others. Patience may be necessary.

 

[Guest]

I bought this for my KZ400. http://www.ebay.com/itm/26151637849...7CR40%7CR40&_sacat=0&_nkw=261516378497&_rdc=1 Works great and for some some unexplained reason they sent two! Took about 3 weeks. My lever was worn out and rattling too. Has switch on it for brake light

 

[chris032188]

awesome appreciate the good info guys!

 

[Grimly]

Do you have a ten dollar crash helmet, too?

 

[81GS850]

I just bought a 16mm for my gs850, works great! Haven't used it enough tho to really tell.

 

[81GS850]

Do you have a ten dollar crash helmet, too?

No, I don't wear one and save my $10

 

[Grimly]

Well, on the principle that a billion Chinese can't be wrong, I suppose it makes sense.
I'm unaware how many Chinese wear, or choose not to wear, crash hats - not a lot from what I've seen.
Anyway, back to the m/c. My opinion only and you can toss it on the fire if you like. I've bought NewOldStock, recon, and used m/cs in recent years and would rather trust a Japanese made m/c that I'm going to rebuild myself with new OEM rubbers than a $14.95 m/c off ebay.
I have a bit of leariness about those things - you only need it to fail one time and your day is ruined.
Same with wheel bearings - good bearings are so cheap it's not worth buying the crappy stuff.
Both M/Cs and wheel bearings have one thing in common - if they fail catastrophically on a motorcycle, the rider will have a very hard time.
There's a lot of other things on bikes that need to be in ****-hot order, too; but some of them can be non-critical - M/Cs and bearings aren't.

 

[Nessism]

A master cylinder is a casting with a hole in it, into which they stick a plunger. Pretty basic stuff. I wouldn't be worried about running a Chinese one. Masters aren't the type of things that fail catastrophically anyway.

 

[81GS850]

Well, on the principle that a billion Chinese can't be wrong, I suppose it makes sense.
I'm unaware how many Chinese wear, or choose not to wear, crash hats - not a lot from what I've seen.
Anyway, back to the m/c. My opinion only and you can toss it on the fire if you like. I've bought NewOldStock, recon, and used m/cs in recent years and would rather trust a Japanese made m/c that I'm going to rebuild myself with new OEM rubbers than a $14.95 m/c off ebay.
I have a bit of leariness about those things - you only need it to fail one time and your day is ruined.
Same with wheel bearings - good bearings are so cheap it's not worth buying the crappy stuff.
Both M/Cs and wheel bearings have one thing in common - if they fail catastrophically on a motorcycle, the rider will have a very hard time.
There's a lot of other things on bikes that need to be in ****-hot order, too; but some of them can be non-critical - M/Cs and bearings aren't.

Ok first off... the master cylinder is $33 and the one I bought recently was $49. Secondly, a master cylinder for my bike brand new is over $150, and my old one was way beyond repair to "trust it". Also if it "failed casastrophically" then you would just use your back brakes and downshift. Or are you one of those owners of a runaway Prius that wasn't aware they could turn off the car or put it in neutral?

 

[tkent02]

The ones I have bought are working fine, much better than the original.

 

[Grimly]

Really? Perhaps you'd like to have been in the two cars I was in where they did just that. In spite of both cars having dual-circuit m/c braking it wasn't worth a damn. Luckily, one failure happened on the backroads, but the other one was slowing down for a ped crossing, and since I couldn't stop, I had to indulge in an impromptu game of reverse skittles to not flatten the peds. Not fun, I can assure you.

 

[Grimly]

Or are you one of those owners of a runaway Prius that wasn't aware they could turn off the car or put it in neutral?

No. Are you a moron?

 

[Guest]

I try to avoid the cheap stuff also. There is a lot of stuff coming out of China that is messed up like some swing arm extension that are breaking from using a cheaper grade of billet aluminum.
Grimeca makes high quality brake parts that what I use when I go after market other wise I just rebuild the factory stuff.

 

[81GS850]

Really? Perhaps you'd like to have been in the two cars I was in where they did just that. In spite of both cars having dual-circuit m/c braking it wasn't worth a damn. Luckily, one failure happened on the backroads, but the other one was slowing down for a ped crossing, and since I couldn't stop, I had to indulge in an impromptu game of reverse skittles to not flatten the peds. Not fun, I can assure you.

Were these new chinese m/c? If they were, once you replaced them and them only did it fix the problem?

 

[81GS850]

I try to avoid the cheap stuff also. There is a lot of stuff coming out of China that is messed up like some swing arm extension that are breaking from using a cheaper grade of billet aluminum.
Grimeca makes high quality brake parts that what I use when I go after market other wise I just rebuild the factory stuff.

I was going to rebuild mine till the cost to rebuild exceeded the cost of a new and better designed mc.

 

[Guest]

A master cylinder is a casting with a hole in it, into which they stick a plunger. Pretty basic stuff. I wouldn't be worried about running a Chinese one. Masters aren't the type of things that fail catastrophically anyway.

+1 to that, says it all

The cheap one I bought works great but I did replace the two cover screws with stainless steel screws because they started to rust. Would not use the model I bought on a dual disk but it's more than adequate on a single disk kz400 and should work fine on the OP's 450

 

[Guest]

Also if it "failed casastrophically" then you would just use your back brakes and downshift.

If you were in the middle of a hard stop when the M/C failed there is no way you would have time to realize what happened and stop with the rear brake before you hit whatever caused the hard stop in the first place.


Mark

 

[81GS850]

If you were in the middle of a hard stop when the M/C failed there is no way you would have time to realize what happened and stop with the rear brake before you hit whatever caused the hard stop in the first place.


Mark

So are you replacing the rear master at the same time? Because that could fail in a hard stop as well. Do you have 30+ year old calipers that have never been rebuilt? Do you have rubber brake lines still? Point is, a new chinese master cylinder is no more likely to fail than the 30+ year old brake components still on the bike.