Bandit Alley
GENERAL MOTORCYCLE FORUMS => GENERAL MECHANICAL & TECHNICAL => Topic started by: Oldschooler on July 26, 2005, 09:01:19 AM
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I have a 1996 Bandit 600 with 17000 miles. Looking at the front brake pads it looks like I have about 2-3k left on them. The disks themselves look good. They are not worn thin and have no heavy scoring. My question is, Can I just replace the pads this go around or do I have to always replace the disks with the pads?
Thx
Jim
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Unless your disk rotors are warped or scored heavily, as you mentioned, you should be able to replace the pads only.
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IF you're concerned about them, you can always take some calipers and check the thickness. I don't have a manual handy but it should have a minimum they recommend
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If you're getting any brake pulsation it could be a bad rotor. My 2003, with 18 K miles needs a new left rotor because of thickness variations.
Measuring the thickness at several points, the rotor varies in thickness by about 0.0015". Floating rotors as on the Bandit don't usually have this happen and my mileage is easy, touring mileage, so I'm figuring bad metal in the disk.
In my experience the non-floating, double sided piston calipers respond to this variation and deliver pulsation back to the rider more often than the floating type calipers. They can't follow the variations as a floating caliper can.
Run out is within tolerance, but the thickness variation should be less than 0.0005" -- at least that's what we try for on car rotors when maching them. At about 0.001" you can start to feel the pulsations in a car -- at 0.0015 it becomes pronounced, and virtually undriveable at 0.002"
I'm going to try EBC Pro-Lite rotors as they're cheaper than the Suzuki parts, $167 vs. $244 each. I'm replacing both as I want them to look the same.
Brake pads are less than half worn at 18 K so they'll be replaced later.
Ron Ayers had the best price I could find, Dennis Kirk the highest at $189.
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Just do what that guy says!!!!
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A follow up on the EBC Prolite rotors.
They went on easily, with new pads (EBC) too. I cleaned the exposed parts of the pistons before pressing them back into place in the calipers.
The new disks seem to have a lot of drag, certainly more than before, but the instructions indicate a zinc coating that needs to be rubbed off before they're broken in completely.
Looking at the surface I think I can see the zinc -- it looks like galvanizing in a way. I'll take it easy and check for heating of the rotors often to make sure nothing is wrong. I thoroughly cleaned the calipers, and put a dab of high temperature grease on the pad bearing surfaces where the pads contact the caliper, just to be sure of minimal friction there. The pads are installed correctly so I doubt the drag is related to them. The brakes hold just fine and seem to release okay too, but I haven't ridden her yet.
More later -- if the brake drag lessens or goes away.