| Author | Message | ||
     Spectrum |
I'm new here, been reading this forum for months, but just bought an 03 XB9S (2 weeks ago). By the way you guys rock! Anyway my question is the bike has developed a vibration (last couple of days) but only when applying the front brake at low speeds. I took it in for the 10K service today and had them replace the front pads (they were very thin). The vibration was gone at first but after the new pads started setting in, it seems to have started to come back. Is this a warped rotor? If so, it wasn't there when I bought the bike and it had 9888 miles, what did I do to cause this? By the way had Syn3 put in and the bike seems to have a lot more punch. I accidentally lifted the front tire about four inches on my first hard acceleration during a second gear shift. | ||
| Diablobrian |
Make sure your steering head bearings are properly set. This commonly is the cause. Also be sure the front rotor still "floats" properly. | ||
| 99buellx1 |
Before you buy a rotor, clean the mounting pins with some brakeclean. It is a floating design and if it gets cloged or cant float, it can cause the same symptoms of a warp. | ||
| Trojan |
Get some brake cleaner and clean the rotor. The OE pads tend to deposit material on the disc, which builds up and gives the same symptoms as a warped disc. Some of the aftermarket pads such as Braking are better and don't leave any deposits. | ||
| Blake |
What Trojan said.  A splotchy looking disk is the tell-tale sign of a build-up on the disk that produces a pulsating effect. Scotch bright pad along with brake cleaner should clean it up okay. | ||
| Sakuc |
Toss the original pads, even from new bike and buy sintered ones. I got braking sintered, they cost fraction what local dealership charges for OEM pads and the braking ones don't leave the residue on disk. | ||
| Spectrum |
Fixed! The Scotchbright/brake cleaner did the trick. Braking is now smooth as silk. I say again “You guys rock”. There is no telling how much time and money I would have wasted with the dealer chasing this problem. Contrasted with help from you guys it took $4 worth of parts and 15minutes to fix. BadWeb is awesome. People from US (Texas, Iowa, Missouri). UK and Finland posted help on this thread. Here we have the collective knowledge of an international team of experts. There’s no way a dealership can have that kind of information at their disposal. This has convinced me I need to do my own maintenance work. I’m ordering shop manuals today. (Message edited by spectrum on June 30, 2006) | ||
| Xbolt12 |
I was just going to agree with the last bunch of posters. It's the stock pads and the rotors get glazed unevenly around the cooling holes. Lyndalls cure that and I would be other pads do as well. Also American Sportbike sells a hone you could use periodically. |
