Lost my brakes in the rain

[Brendan W]

How and what with do you wash the front end of the bike ?

 

[argonsagas]

I have never experienced anything like that on the G or GK, and both have seen heavy rain, as well as ice and snow.


I would side with others on the contamination of your pads, and if so that does mean replacement of pads would be in order. It would be far better to replace them than to risk continuation of the problem.

 

[BluePlateSpecial]

How and what with do you wash the front end of the bike ?

The only thing I have ever used is Meguiars car wash.

 

[DanTheMan]

These bikes have famously bad wet weather brakes stock.

After several thousand miles of riding a GS in the rain I never noticed any special problem. Forum members with many times my experience and with extensive experience riding other makes and models haven't complained about any general problem.

BS, no they do not.

+1, pure BS.

+3, pure BS. I just rode my '80 GS850L (slightly G'ed) through massive downpours last weekend, and many other times as well. No brake problems there, same with my '83 GS1100G. Wet brakes have been no problem with either one.

 

[Grimly]

Got caught in a little rain on my way back from a bike show yesterday. It had only been raining for a couple of minutes and I hadn't ridden through any puddles, but as I turned into my subdivision I realized that my front brakes were gone. Tried to use my back brake to stop but with the wet pavement it locked up and I started to slide. Somehow I managed to recover and avoid hitting the median or laying it down and I managed to make my way home SLOWLY.

Welcome to the 1980s and the sheer crap we had to put up with during wet weather.
Modern pad materials made a huge improvement, even on old caliper and disc designs, but it's only really brought car-type take-it-for-granted braking to bikes in the past 20-odd years. Earlier than that, you have to be a bit cautious in the wet, decent pad material or not.
Part of riding defensively in the '80s was keeping the water wiped off the disc by regularly giving the lever a light touch and hoping you didn't really need to brake hard at any time.

 

[tkent02]

Welcome to the 1980s and the sheer crap we had to put up with during wet weather.
Modern pad materials made a huge improvement, even on old caliper and disc designs, but it's only really brought car-type take-it-for-granted braking to bikes in the past 20-odd years. Earlier than that, you have to be a bit cautious in the wet, decent pad material or not.
Part of riding defensively in the '80s was keeping the water wiped off the disc by regularly giving the lever a light touch and hoping you didn't really need to brake hard at any time.

Maybe on Kawasakis and Yamahas.

Never had this problem on GSes. The brakes worked, wet or dry. My only transportaion year round in Seattle was a GS for many years, have ridden in rain once or twice.

 

[Grimly]

Maybe on Kawasakis and Yamahas.

Never had this problem on GSes. The brakes worked, wet or dry. My only transportaion year round in Seattle was a GS for many years, have ridden in rain once or twice.

Then, I invite you to ride a plain disc '79, with its stupidly small pads on stupidly small calipers on a rain-soaked British motorway around the Home Counties.
All you people who say it's BS - you just don't know, do you? There's a certain type of oil-laden dirty rain that happens on motorways after days of hot dry weather and all the crap/oil/muck comes up in the spray and coats the discs and pads.
Now tell me it's BS - I've been in it, for hundreds of horrible miles, hoping I would get out of it.
Go on, tell me.

 

[tkent02]

This bike in Seattle was a '77 550, same little brake, it worked fine.
Get off the computer and maintain your brakes.

 

[Brendan W]

I rode solid discs in the late 70s on my 160 mile commute and braking in the rain just wasn't an option. About 1980 along came metallic pads and drilled discs and that was that as they say.

 

[Grimly]

I rode solid discs in the late 70s on my 160 mile commute and braking in the rain just wasn't an option. About 1980 along came metallic pads and drilled discs and that was that as they say.

Exactly.
Suzuki (and the other makers) knew they were selling death on wheels to hapless riders who used them in the rain. The 1980 bike was a turning point and the advent of sintered pads also helped a lot (even if you paid the price for saving your neck with shorter disc life). I had nothing like the same apprehension of wet motorways on the '80 as I did on the '79 and it was nothing to do with lack of maintenance tkent - it was a shoite design that deserved the dustbin of history.
I would like to point out that I've posted on a couple of occasions my liking of the later calipers - they're only really crap with wear and tear; when they're within wear allowances they're actually quite good with decent pads, rain or shine. In my rejuvenation of the '79, I'm fitting the later calipers (a Brembo upgrade may come later) but this will be a summertime bike, so the solid discs on it aren't a particular drawback. No matter, I have a spare wheel with slotted discs, anyway.

 

[tkent02]

Exactly.
Suzuki (and the other makers) knew they were selling death on wheels to hapless riders who used them in the rain.

Again, BS. The later brakes are certainly better, but the early ones were hardly death on wheels, or I would be dead many thousands of times over. Used the brakes in the rain almost daily, for years and years.

Seattle has a lot of rainy days, I commuted across the city in heavy traffic every day for years.

No death, no falling down even.

 

[tkent02]

Maybe if you grew up riding modern sport bikes the old brakes would spell death.

If you grew up riding bikes with crappy drum brakes the early discs were a huge improvement. They didn't fade halfway through a stop, they had enough power for the tires of the day. Before the first GS I prefered a drum on the back, so at least some of the brakes would come on sooner. XS 650, CB 750, RD 350, others. When the '77 GS 550 came out it was no longer necessary, the front disc came on pretty quickly even when wet. No grabbing, no locking of wheels, no death. No waiting for the disc to dry out, simply squeeze the lever and you start slowing down.

If you are not happy with your brakes why not upgrade them?

This works pretty well:

 

[Grimly]

Your point is wide of my mark. Commuting in city traffic is NOT the same as high-speed work on motorways (freeways to you).

 

[tkent02]

Actually it is all kinds of roads, freeways, surface streets, the works. How do you think we get across cities?
I really don't care about your mark.
Ride with your crappy brakes anywhere you like.

 

[Dj66]

There sure are some arrogant asses on board here.

 

[bccap]

Again, BS. The later brakes are certainly better, but the early ones were hardly death on wheels, or I would be dead many thousands of times over. Used the brakes in the rain almost daily, for years and years.

Seattle has a lot of rainy days, I commuted across the city in heavy traffic every day for years.

No death, no falling down even.

It rains in Seattle ?

 

[tkent02]

There sure are some arrogant asses on board here.

I'm sorry, anyone trying to say thi is normal because his brakes are supposed to suck is going to get an argument from me.

Got caught in a little rain on my way back from a bike show yesterday. It had only been raining for a couple of minutes and I hadn't ridden through any puddles, but as I turned into my subdivision I realized that my front brakes were gone. Tried to use my back brake to stop but with the wet pavement it locked up and I started to slide. Somehow I managed to recover and avoid hitting the median or laying it down and I managed to make my way home SLOWLY.

Awhile back I noticed a small drip of brake fluid coming from the lower part of one of the front calipers. I am assuming that the rain washed some of this down onto the rotors which caused my front brakes to fail.

This is NOT how they are supposed to work.

 

[Grimly]

Actually it is all kinds of roads, freeways, surface streets, the works. How do you think we get across cities?
I really don't care about your mark.
Ride with your crappy brakes anywhere you like.

Please yourself. Your brakes were wonderful, mine weren't. Funny how thousands of other people in wet countries were wrong too, isn't it?
Like I said, Suzuki and the other makers knew they had to do something else they'd have been facing a crapstorm of legal actions, and even then, back in those days, the legal scum were just limbering up - they dropped the ball on that one. If the same situation with crappy design had come about now, the class action lawsuits would be peppering the boardrooms of Tokyo.

 

[tkent02]

I never said they were wonderful, if they were wonderful I wouldn't have replaced them with better ones. I'm saying they were not death traps. You are saying this guys brakes failing completely is normal?

I'm saying Bullsh:t.

 

[Guest]

i call bs on the stock brakes being terrible too. as for arrogance on the board, uh, welcome to the interwebz?? sheesh, what is this, a barney episode?