[cvax]

Hi guys,

I just did a tire change on my front and rear wheels, but since putting on the new ones and reattaching everything I feel like my front brakes have less bite to them. I am not quite sure what would cause this and am looking for any tips or thoughts anyone may have.

What I did to put the wheel back in was this:
If viewing from the front of the bike
1. Slide axel through
2. Torque axel pinch bolts on the left side
3. Torque axel nut to specs
4. Torque axel pinch bolts on the right side
5. Put both brake calipers over the rotors
6. Move the wheel, squeeze the brakes several times
7. While squeezing the brakes, torqued the calipers into place

There is great brake pressure in the lever and it can stop the bike, but it just feels like it doesn't bite as hard as it used to. I feel like I need to squeeze harder on normal cruising stops at a red light. This is my first time changing the front myself. Is this normal for the calipers to seem this way in the beginning after a change? Does it just need some time to get used to its ever so slightly new position on the rotor? Thanks.

 

[cvax]

Thanks melk-man. I just tried your procedure, but it doesn't seem to be of any difference.

I did just notice that my brake reservoir is beyond the upper limit with brake fluid though. This seems a bit odd to me. Prior to this the level was between upper and lower. I didn't open the brake lines or anything at all. The only thing I did was push the brake pads in to make it easier to put the calipers on the rotor. Hmm. Not sure what would have caused this. I tried bleeding the brakes just a little bit now and it seems like there are no air bubbles.

 

[cvax]

Thanks. I will try this tomorrow. I ended up getting myself into the messy process of changing brake fluids to see if that would help. Apparently I actually had very little brake fluid in there. The rubber stopper cap was sucked into the reservoir giving a false impression that I had more fluid than in reality. Not sure about how the brakes feel yet as I didn't get a chance to play with them since the sun went down.

 

[cvax]

Thanks for the tip on cleaning the pistons. I did that, they still aren't coming out perfectly in sync with each other, but much better than before. It seems to have helped.

 

[cvax]

Thanks. So I think I got the brakes sorted out, but now I am not sure if this is expected or not. When the bike is parked and I just very gently push the bar end, the front can wiggle a bit with very little effort. Is this expected? My CBR250's front end requires a harder push on the bar ends to get the front wheel to wiggle when parked.

 

[cvax]

I have the bike parked on the kick stand. The front wheel is angled to the left side. I just take the handle bar on the left side and wiggle it a little bit. It feels very easy to move the wheel a bit before any real friction kicks in to stop me from moving the handle bar. If I tap the handle bar a little the wheel wiggles maybe a bit less than half an inch before settling down in its rest position again. It seems to bounce once before settling down. Not sure if that is normal.

Here is a top down exaggerated drawing: http://i.imgur.com/EMrRA9v.png
The wiggle goes from step 1 --> 2 --> 3 --> 4