brake cleaning
 

Seems my front brakes are starting to stick, most likley sped up by riding on and off the jobsites, I hosed it down today and there was dirt/concrete in a lot of places. I noticed it seemed like the front wheel wasnt rolling as freeley as it should. I thought i may have messed up the wheel bearings but I removed the calipers and the wheel spun freeley.

think its something I could clean with brake cleaner or the calipers need a rebuild?

How many miles on 'em, Tommy? I usually just save myself the aggravation and just rebuild so I don't have to bother going through the entire exercise twice in case a cleaning doesn't fix them.

I had the same issue last year. If you spun my front wheel with everything you had, it'd rotate 1/4 - 1/2 a turn and stop.

I pulled the pistons out of my calipers this winter, cleaned them with a wire wheel, and replaced all the seals. It works great now, and I even got a comment today (after 8 track days) from the guy doing my tech inspection that my brake pistons were pristine. :lol:

Brake cleaner. Brake dust turns into a sticky powder type mess. Just unbolt them and get a bucket. Slide a caliper in the bucket and go to town on it. Do your best to not hose down the brake line or the rubber boot/s too much.

60k miles.

Next question is where to buy a kit?

that I can't help with :lol:

So what good are you, its not like you even have good beer in the fridge :lol:

There will be :lol: I'm gonna raid that local specialty beer place I found near my house. Lots of good stuff there :)

I bought seals for mine here: www.powersportspro.com

Dirt cheap "rebuild" and the brakes work as good as new.

I've cleaned mine before. I use a biodegradable bike wash. Unbolted the caliper, squeeze the lever just enough to expose clean piston and scrub those babies. Worked great.

Didnt see anything on there for the aprilia. I e-mailed them and AF1 about the kits so I will see what they say on monday.

Its still dragging prety good so when I get it home this morning I will break out the simple green and karens toothbrush and clean them out.

I hosed the bike off on friday and it left a huge amout of dirt/concrete dust in the driveway. the front end had a lot of crap caked on there so I wouldnt be surprised if something got in there.

Awesome :lol

Why the fuck are you riding your bike in wet concrete you silly goose?

we have a clinic on a big construction site so the service road in and out of there is prety mesy

Could also be the fork alignment. When replacing the front wheel, the axle bolts could be tightened too much. Or a spacer in the wrong position. The bottom of the forks would then be closer together than the top. This binds the fork movement up and down, and could cause the calipers to bind.

I measured the distance between forks on my old Suzuki decades ago with a set of calipers. I had to shim the axle to get the fork distance perfect, and the rotors equal distance from the forks. I haven't had to replace the fork seals on it in 45K miles. And the brake pads just skim the rotors. But I bet if I took out those shims, the brake pads would bind against the rotors, and the forks would bind.

But would that happen out of nowhere? I replaced the steering head bearings at the start of the season and the front wheel bearings soon after. I have about 5k on the clock so far this season and it just started up a few days ago after an oil change. I didnt touch the front end though.

just heard from af1. they tell me neither brembo or aprilia makes a rebuild kit and that you need to buy a new caliper. Unfrekin believable.

What?

That sounds like bullshit. Give me the specs on your bike, and I'll see if I can come up with something.

JC

That's a load of horse shit

Thanx, a local friend is lookin ginto soem stuf ffor me already, he deals with ducati and some of the other euro manufacturers. if he doesnt come through I will reach out.

its going ot be a hectic week on my end though so Iwill see what happens

Rebuild kit? I don't know about Prilla's, but every caliper I ever took apart had a dust shield, square-edged O-ring, and piston(s). That's it. A Scotch Brite pad can be used to polish the piston (hopefully, there's no rust on it if you changed the fluid sometimes) and bore, soap and water to clean the dust shield, and a new O-ring (and I can't believe someone doesn't have new ones).

Oh, and my CBR uses pins that the pads slide on. They get wear-grooves and cause the pads to stick. If Aprilia uses a sliding pin or pins, replace that first.

That's whats usually in the rebuild kit (minus the piston).

JC

Appreciate the help but now its all moot ans the priller is being put to sleep. Hell I may have a kegger and set it on fire LOL

I know a place we can do that.

Be better if its not around here, most of my neighbors think I am nuts anyway. Get the looks when I drive up blaring machinehead and fear factory in the car:rockwoot:

We can go to a place where no one would bat an eyelash at a massive flame.

at a kkk meeting lol

Well sure, but no.