I just got new tires installed on my bike (thursday), now before I took my bike in to the dealership I would be able to press down on my rear brake (pedal) and it would only take about an 1" of travel downward before my rear tire would stop completely. Now that I picked up my bike back after changing tires, I find my brake pedal not responding the same, so I took it back and they said I need new brake pads so finally I got new pads too. After all this my pedal is still not working as it used to (it does brake), but I have to press down further on the pedal. Question is: what is normal on ur bikes? how much of the pedal do u have to press before COMPLETELY stoping the rear tire??

 

Your not alone man, mine is the same way. Happend after I put new pads on. I doubt it'll even lock up the back tire now. I had a mech. flush out and replace the fluid and it helped a little, but he said the caliper needs to be replaced. ~$10 he told me. Just been too busy ridin to get it done.

 

Well that's nice to know I can look forward to that...I'm getting ready to change my brakes...front and rear. What kind of pads did you use?? and what's the difference between sintered and regular brakes??
I'm looking at Carbone Lorraine's SBK-3: http://www.kneedraggers.com/details/...ARBLOR-32.html

Galfer: http://www.kneedraggers.com/details/...2-GALF-62.html

or Tufstop: http://www.denniskirk.com/jsp/produc...amp;mmyId=4346

 

Did my front and rear and no problems.

 

I looked into this last night because I changed my front pads and had to take the master cylinder off completely, take it to work and drill out the ****ty phillips screws(they were totally stripped and I needed to get the cap off). In theory the rear should work the same exact way as the front and since I took the front completely off that means it went to completely empty to getting me to school this morning with a nice firm set of front brakes. What I did was completely fill the master cylinder resevoir with dot4 using a kitchen squirt bottle...you know those kinds that restaraunts put ketchup and **** in. Then I filled the hole where the brake line goes into and kept the m/c upright so as to not lose any fluid...basically all voids within the m/c were filled with fluid to limit the air pockets as much as possible when I connected the brake line. After that I bled the fronts. Many will tell you to get a mityvac pump but after I had the brake system closed up I had pressure after at most...6 pumps of the brakes. If you do a search on these forums for bleeding brakes guys will tell you they counted to 3000 and I can see why, before I took the m/c off and everything and had the pads in I tried to pump the brakes and did at least 120 times before I said **** this, there's gotta be an easier way. From a completely empty m/c to fully bled and good operating brakes in no more than 20 minutes. I had to only bleed each side like 6 times before there was no air in the lines. Top off the resevoir and it was good to go. The rear should be no different.