took off the tire

[bikenutt1980]

I removed the front tire, wasnt all that hard except getting it to come all the way off but i let some air out and she came right off. I did notice 2 of the 4 brake pads were really worn. On the left side it was the inside pad and on the right it was the outside pad. What would cause this? Seems to me that they all should be worn down the same? Sorry im use to cars. LOL

jason

[Hammerhead1st]

You have to remove your brake lever, turn it upside down, then replace it. This will reverse the side-to-side pressure and the pads will wear the other way. Sometimes you have to turn the master cylinder around to get the full effect.

Good luck man!!

NOTE: This post was made under duress while being held captive on a desert island by half-naked barbarian psycho-women wielding wet linguine and red hot coconut milk. I make no testament as to the correctness of this advice. Don't blame me, the psycho-women made me do it!!

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Hammer,

'Preciate the effort in wanting to give something back to the group, but you'll need to do a little bit more research into the differences between the Standards...what you have, and the Specials...what Jason has!

Jason, your pads are probably fine, the specials use a special designed rotating caliper, and so the pads are bevelled that way to fit around the forks/ rotors and such!

Yes....it's a stupid engineering thing that Yamaha did, but that's the way they are! The pads usually have a small groove cut down the middle of them, and when you can't see that groove anymore, then the wear indicator has worn down to the replacement point! Otherwise, they are okay!
T.C.

[Hammerhead1st]

Aw shucks, TC!! Just when I thought I had this tech help thing down pat!

Bah...a minor attempt at humor sometimes ends up in a major attempt at hiding...

[Ken Talbot]

Originally posted by Hammerhead1st
Bah...a minor attempt at humor sometimes ends up in a major attempt at hiding...

I caught it, hammer, especially liked the red-hot coconut milk part.

[fredintoon]

Yammie's cruel joke

Hi TC,
yeah, my XS11SG was in sorry shape when I got it, amongst other things, the brakes were locked on. Tore down the front calipers, saw those tapered pads, thought "what arsehole did this?" and bought new ones. Who'd have thought they were supposed to be that way?

[bikenutt1980]

Yeah i would say its weird. Best part was the cotter pin was missing. Of course its my fault for not going over the bike with a fine tooth comb when i bought it.

jason

[TADracer]

Like some other things on an XS (like carbs) the front calipers work great when right and are a PITA when wrong. The through bolt can bend ever so slightly on the front calipers through use. If this happens the chances of getting the things back on and working perfectly are slim. So whenever I remove front calipers on a special I watch the caliper body while unscrewing the bolt. If it sways back and forth a bit, then its new through bolt time.

I have looked at this a hundred times and still can't figure out how an engineer could have come up with this design when a straight forward setup is so....well, straight forward.