My rear has always been lousy which I've read is pretty typical for these bikes but I have a lot of free play in my brake lever for the front. I have to pull it in probably a half inch before I feel them grab. When I'm not moving I can squeeze the brake lever all the way down, there is resistance but not much as I'd think there should be. Is this supposed to happen or is something outta wack? The pads and rotors look pretty much brand new and it's full of fluid. I feel like I should have more braking power.

 

Sounds like air in the lines, try bleeding them. They should bottom-out before they reach the grip. There should be some travel, but then they should stiffen up. Replacing the lines with braided stainless steel will also make a big difference.
Ern

 

try checking/adjusting the slack in your brake cable as well. That could be causing that freeplay you have before the brakes actually start to grab.

 

Before you go tearing things apart and making adjustments, flush the brake fluid and bleed the brakes. Brake fluid is cheap and it takes about 20 minutes. Rear brake should be strong enough to lock the rear tire.

 

Alright thanks for the suggestions. I've had some Valvoline synthetic DOT4 laying around for a little while so I'll flush them tomorrow. Is the rear brake adjustable in anyway? I have a feeling that the previous owner maybe tried making it so the rear was less prone to locking up the tire. I don't think they were very good riders. I can push down the rear brake for a long time before I get any response. I really only use it to hold the bike on hill starts because it takes so long to grab.

 

Well to give you an idea, I have an 06 and the first thing I did was flush the brakes.


No, this isn't a drug test sample. That's what came out of the front brake master cylinder. And it had the consistency of snot.

You can adjust the rear brake. I don't have any diagrams handy to show you what to adjust but I know there's a thread or 5 on the forum somewhere But start with flushing / bleeding and go from there. Build a good known foundation and work up

 

Roger that I'll do a search tomorrow then haha. Thanks again.

 

Did you pull the pads out and look at them? I only ask cause when I bought my bike I had the same problem. The pads looked fine when looking at them in the calipers while on the bike. Once I pulled the pads out I could see they weren't as good as they looked while on the bike. So in the end to get the feel I was looking for I ended up changing the brake pads and brake fluid. I also used some Simple Green and a tooth brush to clean up the calipers. Then sprayed some brake cleaner on a shop rag to clean the inside and outside of the rotors. After I did all this the braking and feel was Awesome!

Moses

 

The front should be bled for sure. Compared to nearly every bike I have ever been on, my rear brake is VERY touchy! I find it locks up wy sooner than I want it to. I like to drag rear brake into corners to adjust my speed if I am coming in a bit hot. More than once I got the surprise of locking the rear... not good!

One thing that just came to mind, the rear pads may be sintered. I bought sintered pads for my Dodge Stealth thinking they must be better since they cost more and last longer. I didn't realize how drastically it would change the brake feel though. The pedal pressure took some getting used to, but I wouldn't go back to organic now.

 

On brake pads, same thing. If you don't know the bike's maint history, those pads could have been on there for a long time.


These are the pads off my bike. They're the stock originals and are pretty glazed over.


This is after I took a da sander to them.