Kawasaki Concours Forum
The C-14, aka Kawasaki Concours-14, the new one :) => The Bike - C14/GTR 1400 => Topic started by: Mal on April 25, 2012, 03:55:46 PM
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Coming home from a day ride and heading up an on-ramp I tried to use my rear brake and the pedal went all the way to the stop without effect. After I got home I did a quick visual check and could see nothing wrong. I thought maybe I had heated up the rear and the brakes were spongy because of that, suspected some air bubbles or something so I bled the system. Afterwards there was still nothing so I removed the caliper. Dust, flakes, and fragments fell out and into my hand, the brake pads looked like they had disintegrated! The backing plates were bent backwards at both corners and some 'tin' plates fell out that were mangled. I've got some new pads arriving today or tomorrow, but I wanted to ask if anyone else had encountered this. Did the pads just fail spectacularly or is this a symptom of something more sinister...
TIA
Mal
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Stockers or some other brand? I wore my Carbonne Lorraines to the point of being beyond bad, I had just checked them about 2000 miles earlier and I thought they were about %50, boy, was I wrong. How does the rotor look? And FWIW, my fav pads to date are EBCs, Galfers were OK, CLs once broke in were awesome at street speeds, but almost worthless at track speeds, stockers (08)? OK if you like extra deposits on the rotors I guess.
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Stockers or some other brand? I wore my Carbonne Lorraines to the point of being beyond bad, I had just checked them about 2000 miles earlier and I thought they were about %50, boy, was I wrong. How does the rotor look? And FWIW, my fav pads to date are EBCs, Galfers were OK, CLs once broke in were awesome at street speeds, but almost worthless at track speeds, stockers (08)? OK if you like extra deposits on the rotors I guess.
I don't know SoP, they were on the bike when I bought it. You're right about the deposits, the holes in the rotors were full of smegma. The rotors themselves look fine...
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Try the EBCs, I think you'll like em, break in period was shorter than any of the others. Happy to hear the rotors are OK.
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You don't say how old the pads were. When is the last time they were checked?
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You don't say how old the pads were. When is the last time they were checked?
Ummm... :-[
No noise from them at all, so I've never checked them. They worked fine during the ride up and down the Grand Mesa, it was on the off ramp from I-25 that they failed. I had zero indication that there was anything wrong before the failure.
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Sounds like there was a previous owner? Maybe they had the rock stuck in the linkage issue and didn't realize it right away. If you ride very far with the brake engaged the pads will overheat and say goodbye. All the resin will cook out of them.
I can't imagine why you'd use the rear brake enough to wear it out otherwise.
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Replaced the pads and bled the system. Pedal responds as it should now, will take it for a test ride this weekend hopefully. I guess if this set disintegrates I'll know something else is going on...
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I'd also check the expiration date on them.
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Sounds like there was a previous owner? Maybe they had the rock stuck in the linkage issue and didn't realize it right away. If you ride very far with the brake engaged the pads will overheat and say goodbye. All the resin will cook out of them.
I can't imagine why you'd use the rear brake enough to wear it out otherwise.
And this is exactly what happened... Either it was a rock in the linkage, or one of the cylinders failed to release. Either way the brakes way overheated. The bluing on the rotor is a silent testament to how hot they got...
What say you Braintrust? Should the rotor, the caliper or both be replaced? How can I check the caliper operation and be confident that it didn't stick, or won't stick again?
Thanks in Advance...
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I'd also check the expiration date on them.
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