Brake replacement

[sethhope]

Howdy fellas!
Recently I rebuilt the brake system on ol' Roxy. Cleaned and resealed the calipers and master cylinders, and replaced all the rubber with stainless lines.

Here's the thing, my brakes still stick. My front brakes specifically. Just enough to make it difficult to move around the driveway. Given the known deficiencies in the XS11 brakes, It's been on my mind to upgrade my calipers.

Are there any aftermarket calipers that you guys would recommend ( I'd prefer to keep my master cylinder and not replace the whole system)?

If you guys don't recommend aftermarket calipers, is there anywhere I can get reliable stock front calipers?

[DiverRay]

try this:http://www.xs11.com/forum/showthread...+front+caliper or, do a search with "replacement front caliper" and you should come up with a few ideas. The standard is easy, as it uses mounting bosses like 98% of the modern motorcycles. The special is....well...special! It takes a lot more to mount calipers properly.

[MPittma100]

Spooge hole

The brakes should not be sticking after caliper and m/c rebuild. Since yours are, the spooge hole in the master cylinder is likely stopped up. It allows fluid to return to the m/c when brake lever is released. It is easily missed on a rebuild. It is a very small hole in the bottom of the m/c. Need to verify that it is clear.

It is also important that the caliper seal groove be thoroughly cleaned.

[sethhope]

The brakes should not be sticking after caliper and m/c rebuild. Since yours are, the spooge hole in the master cylinder is likely stopped up. It allows fluid to return to the m/c when brake lever is released. It is easily missed on a rebuild. It is a very small hole in the bottom of the m/c. Need to verify that it is clear.

It is also important that the caliper seal groove be thoroughly cleaned.

I made sure to clean the spooge hole on my rebuild (I read through a few threads on the subject before I undertook the project). I went through both calipers and master cylinder with guitar strings to make sure everything was clear. Master cylinder is working as expected, and my right front caliper is also working as expected. My problem is with my left one. I think the piston or caliper body is warped. No matter how clean I got it, I couldn't get the piston to glide through the hole like I could on the right caliper.

[DiverRay]

Did you try the piston without the seal? If the piston is "sticking", then you have a problem!! If the bike has been down, the caliper may have been bent. That WILL cause problems! I know this from experience!
Standards use a "normal" type caliper, and are rather easy to find a replacement. If just one side is sticking, and does so WITHOUT the seal on the piston, replace that caliper.
If it does NOT stick with just the piston, then you did NOT clean the grove in the caliper! You will need to pull it apart and clean out the grove the seal goes into to keep it from binding.

[skids]

Please ignore my post. I could not delete it.

[sethhope]

The piston DOES stick without the seal in it. So my caliper must be bent. Now you say its a "normal" type mount on the standard. Does that mean i just measure the bolts and can use pretty much any calipers that'll match up? Are there any that you guys use and recommend?

[DiverRay]

Check my search on previous reply. It will give you some ideas. Also, you can probably find a replacement part from andreas or ebay at a reasonable price. I've found that with stainless lines and drilled rotors the brakes work well for the power of the bike.
If you do go the "newer caliper" route, you will need to verify the spacing on the bolts AND the offset for the rotors.

[skids]

Check my search on previous reply. It will give you some ideas. Also, you can probably find a replacement part from andreas or ebay at a reasonable price. I've found that with stainless lines and drilled rotors the brakes work well for the power of the bike.
If you do go the "newer caliper" route, you will need to verify the spacing on the bolts AND the offset for the rotors.

Ray, if the caliper was somehow bent/warped, other than alignment with the rotor, how does this make the piston stick?

[DiverRay]

Special Ed was in a minor accident on a city street, and his bike went down. When it hit, one of the calipers hit something and put a slight dish type ding in it. After that, that brake would not release. I had to change the caliper out for another one to fix it.
So yes, it IS possible to have one that looks good, but that one or two millimeter can ruin the part. Luckily the Standard calipers seem to be easier to find.

[rangerguy302]

I can't access the post, am I grounded?

[DiverRay]

Sorry, my fault. I have access being a mod. Let me copy/paste one or two parts from it for you. Give me about an hour, it's 7:20am here.

[DiverRay]

OK,
Thank crazy_steve for this info from 2011. Some of the guys from the post I was able to get the info from are no longer with us, and I do miss them.
Here are the important bits:

An interesting bit of fallout from my FJ fork swap ala Phil is my choice of late Harley 4-piston calipers. Just for grins, I took a look to see how they'd fit the OEM standard fork...

These would be pretty easy to swap onto any standard front forks. You have to widen the calipers (the HD rotor is only .2" thick vs the XS .27") but a fabricated plate from some .080" aluminum will take care of that, spot-mill .075" off the caliper mounting bosses, fab a simple bracket out of 3/8" aluminum plate and bolt 'em on. These are readily available (dual disc '00-03 Sportster, '00-09 everything else except V-rod), they clear the wheels with room to spare, and will double your pad area. The stock brake lines will work too. Except for the milling (easily done at any machine shop), all the rest could be done at home with a drill press and various hand tools. If you're careful, you could skip the drill press.

Ok, as promised here's the template. Now, don't just print this and use it; by the time these are uploaded, downloaded, and subject to the vagarities of different printers, accuracy will suffer... This will get you close, but you still need to doublecheck the distances between the bolt holes as these need to be right. Here's the pic:



That 'benchmark' is to give you something to scale when printing. To lay this out, start by putting a straight line in at least 7/16" from one edge of your material. Make a mark (again, at least 7/16" from the end) and that's the first hole. Go 4.405" from that hole on the line and make another mark. These are the holes for the XS forks. Now, using a compass and one hole for your 'center', swing an arc from the other hole. Measure 7/8" over on the arc and make a mark. That's the center of the top hole for the HD caliper. Draw a straight line from this mark through the 'center' mark. Measure 2.720" from the top HD hole and that's the lower hole. I swung 7/8" diameter circles around each hole as that's roughly the diameter of the stock fork tabs. All four bolt holes can be drilled with a 13/32" drill bit; that's a few thousandth under the stock size but should work if you have the hole centers right.

The 'cutaway' between the HD mounts is for caliper clearance; the shaded area is how the stock HD forks are, but all you really need is the lesser amount.

If you have a dial caliper, use that as a 'compass' to mark your holes. Scribe your line on the aluminum, centerpunch the first hole, dial the caliper to length and 'lock' it, then use the sharp 'inside' ears on the caliper to mark the next hole by pivoting from the first mark. Works pretty good....

Hardware/bracket material. The stock caliper ears (on both bikes) are .650" thick. I wouldn't go thinner than 3/8" material, and 1/2" would be better to avoid any flex, but that's your call. If you use the thicker material, you can use OEM HD mounting bolts, parts # 44160-00 and 44163-00 (two each), about $2 each new. These will match the caliper bridge bolts. Otherwise, you'll need four 10mm/1.5 bolts; two at 2.82" + and two at .88"+ (the + represents the bracket thickness). You'll also need four 10mm bolts/nuts to attach the brackets to the forks; the OEM caliper bolts will be too short. You'll also need four 10mm washers .075" thick to put between the brackets and the XS forks to properly center the calipers over the rotors. You'll need two 3/8-24 banjo bolts too. If you don't get these with the calipers, check around before buying new OEM parts; chrome ones may be cheaper . You might also check the local indy Harley shops; they have good used parts for cheap sometimes and might be able to fix you up with the hardware...
That's it!
What I can tell you is when I did the preliminary fit-up on these, the calipers would just barely fit over the XS rotors. Now, the pads I have aren't new (but are very close), so with a set of 'well used' pads, yeah, you could make it fit. But I didn't want to have to deal with 'special' parts once I was done with this; trying to cut a set of pads down each time you need brakes isn't my idea of fun.
Plus, I like the idea of cutting the rotors because of the weight reduction; those suckers are heavy...
No, it's not going to be a big weight savings, but every little bit helps. This is unsprung weight too, so it should be a bit more noticable. You're reducing the rotor thickness at the friction surface by 25%, and that surface is roughly 65% of the total rotor area. So .65 X 6.12 = 3.978, then X .75 = 2.98. That would give you roughly a 1 lb weight savings, or about 16%. That's without drilling the rotor, so it's nothing to sneeze at. Better gain than what you'd get from drilling; if you went with a 60-hole pattern and used 3/8" holes, you'd only see about a .43 lb loss. Do both, and you'd have about a 1.3 lb loss for about a 21% reduction. Not huge, but short of going to a high-$$ aftermarket rotor, not bad.