Hi Guys, I picked up a 93 900rr back in August and love it so far. I have one small issue with it that I was hoping you guys could help me with. The front brakes drag so much that you can barely spin the wheel when its elevated, and when on the ground, the bike is extremely hard to move around (without throttle). It also admits a nice squeal when coming to a stop.

After taking off the calipers and trying to find a problem, I found that both front calipers are spaced from the front fork mount, with washers. 4 on each to be exact. I'm going to assume this isn't the stock setup, but I can't figure out why it needs them, apart from the obvious. It appears as though the washer don't space if far enough away from fork, therefore the inside (closest to wheel) brake pad is very tight up against the rotors, even when you manually push it in as far as possible.

So easy solution would be to add more washers, but that's a little to sketchy for my liking.

What I know about the bike is that the rotors were replaced less than 5k miles ago (still reading about 4.3mm thickness) and that the triple clamp is from a 96. Would the use of this triple clamp cause a problem like this? I had a thought that perhaps the individual forks were slanted in a way that would cause the caliper to sit too far inward (toward the wheel). Or maybe the rotors are not the correct offset, but I can't find the spec anywhere (I have the Honda service manual). Other than that, I'm a little lost.

Any suggestions would be great, I included a few pictures, hopefully they are of some help.

Thanks






Full bike for good measure.

 

Well I think you know all you need to know I guess. The spacing on many front end parts of these bikes have changed over the years, typically getting wider, and if you mis-match parts you will have spacing issues.

Something in the mix needs to correct the mis-match. The only thing I would shim is the calipers but I wouldn't do it with washers , personally I'd machine an adapter to make up the difference. For me that would be the easiest and cheapest route.

Otherwise your dealing with the wheel itself or the rotor offset, considereing you may not even know how much of that whole front front end came from where its hard to give much suggestion beyond that. Im sure someone here knows more about the various differences over the years and may have a better answer.

 

+1 on a spacer not washers, if you are doing this type of mod.
Other-wise the stress on the bolt is going to be bad. not to mention torquing
the bolts correctly will be impossible.

The correct spacer will center the sides of the 'c' of the caliper-body over the rotor.
It also sounds to me like you have a frozen caliper. i.e. it's not 'floating' on the
hanger bolts. The ones with the rubber boots. That causes it to drag against one side of the rotor.


If you value the rotors, DO NOT drive the bike, until you get this resolved.
You WILL warp them from excess heat. Besides which, total brake failure is possible. So it's a safety issue,as well.

Ern