I deffinatly learned my lesson on buying cheap motorcycle Parts... I figured I'd pick up a set of black eBay levers to go with my new black powderciated forks well not such a good idea. After putting them on I took it for a ride and 5 minutes down the road start to feel the brakes binding on the rotors. I pull over and everything seems OK. Then I start riding back to my house and down I go skipping down the road at 50 MPH in on coming traffics lane thank God no one was coming. After diagnosing the cause the levers that I thought were such a great deal were slightly putting pressure on the rotors causing them to lock up once warm. This almost cost me my life and it did cost me 2 new rotors, all my fairings, gas tank, jacket, helmet, new sena smh10 that I just installed, and a sprained wrist. If I would have known about this issue I never would have bought them in the first place. I want to throw this out there so no one gets killed because of these **** products from Hong Kong.

Fortunately I replaced everything that was damaged and I ended up with a brand new 954

 

wow! That's terrible. Did you contact seller? Probably no real point to that. They would simply deny everything. At least your injuries were not that major. Any injury, of course, is a bad injury.

 

No offence, Im glad your ok but the last time I heard this happening it was installer error. They didn't adjust the lever after the install and the exact same thing happened.
Did you adjust them after you installed them or did you just replace and then go for a ride?

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What JeffJones said - anything I do brake related gets double
checked before the bike gets on the road !

 

Yeah, i have to admit, this sounds like user error.

its not like the handles where spring loaded constantly pulling your lever, you just didnt adjust them accordingly.

 

There is no adjustment? The lever goes on and the pivot bolt slides threw its not like a dirtbike style where you have an adjustment. The lever position has nothing to do with where the lever makes contact with the plunger. It wasn't noticeable until I rode the bike and got the brakes hot.

 

But did you make sure the bolt was lubed, not on to tight? You also should have noticed if when you squeezed and let go of your lever it should have fully went back out from the plunger, Where as your case it obviously didn't.

 

Normally, you use your brakes which gets the brakes hot, gets the fluid hot and the fluid expands; the pressure is released through the small venting hole in the top of the master cylinder that leads into your brake fluid reservoir.

Because your levers didn't fit right (i'm gonna guess you had to force them a bit to get them to fit too right?), the master cylinder piston was being pushed in ever so slightly, not enough to put your brakes on but enough to cover this venting hole.

You happily ride away with working brakes, as you use the brakes and the fluid gets hot, it cannot vent and the pressure increases - this sticks your brakes on so they start to bind which means it gets even hotter. This gets worse and worse until the brakes lock on solid and you crash. You might have noticed there was an issue if you knew what to look for but there isn't a lot you can do wrong whilst fitting a lever.


You are not the first and you will not be the last person that this happens to, it IS a problem with the levers, they don't fit right and press the master cylinder in. They are made on cheap, badly calibrated and poorly maintained chinese CNC machines (or even hand milled by wage slaves) - it only takes a fraction of a mm here and there to make something lethal.

There are some good chinese/HK levers out there, there is also a lot of subpar ****e made by criminally negligent scum.

 

Thank you for not jumping down my throat like the others that commented on this I appreciate it. This could happen to anyone and I wanted to point it out and make people aware of it so everyone knows what to look for. The levers went on very easily and it was very easy to overlook.

 

I've been thinking about getting a set of these my self.
there is a user on ebay called 2wheels or something to that effect that sells a set of adjustable in many diffrent colors for sub $50 shipped.
has anyone had any deals with this guy? good? bad?