'Stiff" front wheel

[Bonz]

OK,

Don't get all panicky, it's not bad... I replaced the front brake pads last month when I got my new to me 80 SG. Bled everything and cleaned the master cylinder. Had my son put his weight on the rear of the bike while on the centerstand so I could see how the front wheel spins, and it is slightly stiff.

I am used to a bit of hang up or whatever you call it, immediately following replacing the pads. I've put about 50 miles on the bike since then, breaking things in up front and still the front wheel spins a bit stiffly. When I get back from a ride, both front rotors are a bit warm (I can easily leave my hand in touch with them) and I haven't been using the brakes other than to come to a stop at a few stop signs just before getting home. Definitely not using them hard.

Is this simply a matter of letting the pads settle in a bit more, as they may be a hair tight and it will take care of itself?

I did not rebuild the calipers, everything was good and tight (no leaky seals, etc) and the brakes perform a whole lot better than before (contaminated with 28 years of ever so slight fork oil leak that has gone away since I started riding it).

What I don't like is the fork dive under braking, with fresh 15 wt fork oil and approx. 15# of air.

Anyway, any thoughts on the brakes are appereciated.

[blue giant]

Have you tried spinning the wheel with the calipers unbolted from the forks and tucked out of the way? Could be time to regrease or replace your front wheel bearings

Just a thought.

[Bonz]

Good idea to pull the calipers and spin the wheel. It's probably a moot point anyway...

I have the All Balls front wheel bearing kit on hand that I got last week. I wanted to do them, and didn't have the parts on hand when I was doing the brakes. Now that I have the bearings and seals I am planning to do it.

Thanks much.

[John]

Is your bike a Special? There is a procedure to center the right rotor in the groove on the fork leg, after the castellated axle nut is tightened, and before the axle pinch bolt is tightened.

[Bonz]

It is the Special, and I did the centering. It is centered fine as it relates to both caliper mount slots as per the manual and all the advice in this forum, so no worries there.

It's either a slight drag of the new pads on the rotor (nothing huge, because I can spin the wheel it just won't spin freely like I expect) or my wheel bearings are needing serviced. I don't recall how easy the wheel was spinning before I did the pad replacement, but I don't get a hot hub on the wheel when I ride so it seems to me that there's not something major going on down in that area.

Yep, gonna pop off the calipers and spin the wheel, that will tell me real easy if it's pad drag or not.

[Bonz]

Checked the front wheel this morning.

Removed the right caliper first, and the pads are slightly touching the disc. The piston is fully retracted, even tried to lever it in further with a screwdriver between the pads, so the thickness of the pads seems to be the culprit. I sanded the pads down some, and put the caliper back.

The wheel spun fine with the left caliper still in place.

It looks like a bit of riding will take care of it by wearing off that extra bit of material.

[egsols]

Just a thought, you didn't max out the fluid in the MC did you?

[Bonz]

I topped it off to the marked level on the reservoir, but definitely not to top of the reservoir.

The MC was dirty as heck, so I thoroughly cleaned it out before refilling and bleeding the system fully once the new pads were in place.

When I took it for the test ride after doing the pads, the right side got pretty hot (could smell the brakes). I stopped immediately, pumped the brake lever, and haven't had a problem since, other than the slight pad dragging I am dealing with now. Stupid on my part to not catch it quicker, but it didn't notice the problem until I got it up to 50 mph or so after riding around town to make sure things were working (I thought they were, but obviously not).

I don't think the issue now is related to the brakes getting hot, other than there might be something keeping the caliper piston from retracting that last little bit.

I feel like the pads just need to wear in a little bit, as who knows if the new pads are off a bit on tolerances for a 28 year old bike.

[egsols]

When I rebuilt my mc last year I also replaced the original lines (marked 09/78 !) with ss and rebuilt the calipers. I seem to remember that before the rebuild the pistons had less travel in them then after the rebuild. Just my $0.02

[Bonz]

That very well could be. It's on my list to re-do the brake lines at some point. After taking some sandpaper to the pads this morning, it freed up the wheel a bit more than before so I'm not far off.

The pads looked good for having gotten hot initially, I was expecting some glazing but they were good.

[XSPastor]

If I had to guess based on all that's been said so far, I'd say that you made have a piston that's hanging up on some gunk or a piston with some rust pitting causing it to stick. I'm assuming the spooge hole (fluid return port) has been thoroughly cleaned...

[Bonz]

Spooge hole is in MC, yes? If not, then no.

[egsols]

Spooge hole is in MC, yes?

Yes

Have a look at http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14

[webbcraft2150]

The calipers are very easy to disassemble and clean and 98.875621% of the time you will not need any new parts. If your MC was filled with crud, you can bet your calipers are and its only a matter of time before a caliper locks down, not good on a front wheel. Disc brakes will always drag a little whether on a bike, car, truck, airplane, go cart. The SS brake lines will help alot to.

[SanDiegoMike]

Where in the HE** did you come up with that statistic webbcraft?!