How to extinguish a rear brake fire

[SanDiegoMike]

1. Remove leather jacket and begin furiously beating back flames with it until fire is extinguished.
2. Wait for brake line to rupture from the heat and re-ignite fire.
3. Repeat step 1.

It happened while I was riding to the bank...I noticed myself slowing down without applying my brakes (raise red flag here) as I was pulling into the parking lot. After letting it cool down enough to work on, I was able to free up the rear wheel enough to gimp it home by removing the caliper bolts and pounding the crap out of the caliper with a rock to free up the seized piston. Andreas, if you are reading this, I sent you a PM...

Not my favorite day.

[mason79]

damn, another riding incident shared, you see we bikers all have stories, but that one was hot.

[skids]

Funnnny, Mason!
You used a rock to pummel the caliper? Gad zooks. Would removing the bleed screw have helped instead?

Originally posted by mason79
you see we bikers all have stories, but that one was hot.

[SanDiegoMike]

see step 2...

no need to remove bleed screw... believe me, all the fluid burned out.

[eroellig]

When I first went to see my bike, rode it just a few yards to see that it would move itself. The engine wasn't running well at all, but it sure seemed to be having an awful lot of trouble moving. When I got it home, I realized that the rear brake was stuck. Banging on the caliper (with a block of wood) did get it to release. During the rebuild, I found that the rear brake pads only had a very FEW paper thicknesses of pad left

I suspect that the PO was oblivious to the problem.... And that was some NASTY brake fluid.

Eric

[Snow]

I had a rear disc *glowing* red one day - ended up being spooge hole. It's always bad to realize your are slowing for no apparent reason