hello, i was in a pretty serious accident few months back and i wrecked my bike, i'm fixing everything that's broken by myself, i've pretty much-done everything. today new levers arrived. very good reviews on amazon. however upon installing them i notice very uneven braking. sometimes i press hard and it doesn't brake a lot, sometimes i press little and it brakes hard. the lever's have a lot of play, not sure why, they are suited for this motorcycle, what could it be? what should i check? does the little piston look right or is there damage? here is a picture https://imgur.com/a/BtvVOZE
i think the screw was too loose (the one that presses on the piston) and the lever was not able to fully engage the brakes, NOT SURE THO, i'm gonna do a test ride tomorrow those are MZS levers, 40 euro, they got good reviews. i'm gonna post a video, could you tell me if they are mounted right? it's pretty straight forward, but i've heard scary story's about front tire's locking up. also, those the picture of the pistons look good? i crashed on this side, so i don't know it was like that before!
Well, for what it's worth that looks a crap setup! For one thing: is that screw that you adjust locked or clipped in, in any way? What's to stop in undoing -and even falling out, after a good few miles? So, you go for the brake and it does nothing, because the screw has fallen out. Secondly, it looks like either the pin about which the lever rotates is too small, or the hole for it in the lever is too big. That is a lot of up and down movement. I know that shorty levers are all on-trend but I wouldn't want a brake lever (especially the front brake) moving about like that. I wouldn't want to think about them before I need them and then I want them to work perfectly. Also, have you bled your brakes? The lever looks very soft as the brakes look spongy.
that's the same as the original levers, there is a pin that stops it from falling out i follow Ducati's maintenance schedule, i'm at 23k km rn the original levers had play as well, slightly less, the lever manual say's you can put a washer, should i do that? is the levers moving like that an issue?
i mean no disrespect here at all but if you are unsure about ya brakes, i strongly suggest you get a mechanic to take a look!
well before throwing money away i wanna make sure i have an issue. i'm gonna test it tomorrow and everything should be ok now, i just posted here because i wanna make sure i mounted em properly, i always want a second opinion on everything when it comes to safety.
"Throwing money away" - it's you front brake the most important part of your bike! Yes, you should have a washer there I think. I haven't looked for years but I think that there is one on the standard set up - it may be semi-captive and so you will not notice. BTW: from ongoing experience, an insurance co (yours or a third party) will do absolutely anything to get out of paying a claim - I know! Having shorty brake levers (if picked up by the Police inspector) will be like little trinkets of gold from heaven, to an insurance co. They have no conscience anyway, but if they can bin your claim, they will have a very happy day! And if a third party claims against you, then you are f*&ked!
i just took some slack off by tightening the bolt on the lever, not it has 7-8 mm of slack, so it's good according to manual, gonna test drive it today
i think found the issue, for some reason the oil in the right caliper is really cloudy and dark, and that's the caliper that happens to heat up less than the left one, i'm gonna bleed the brakes and replace the oil, do you think that was the issue? also i have an issue, it says use only 3/5 brake fluid??? what does that mean? 3 and 5 are completely different aren't they?
Are you sure that both calipers are free and not seized? The brake fluid should be identical on both sides. So assuming that there is no disc warpage, the wheel should spin quite freely. And then should here a 'cluck' when you hit the brakes and the wheel should stop instantly.
yep i'm sure it's spinning freerly. might be that the previous owner only bleed one of the brakes... (idiot)
No calliper should "heat up", under normal road use. If one side is, but the other side isn't, then that points to a fault with the calliper that is getting hot.
wait no, i meant the disc heat's up, which is normal when braking a lot, and the right one heats up less, and it happens to be on the right side where the oil is cloudy and dark
The red adjuster is for adjusting the reach of the lever ie how far the lever is away from the handle bar, it has nothing to do with the efficiency of the braking system. Adjust it so it is a comfortable reach for your fingers when holding the throttle. The lever should not have that much up/down movement, something is not tightened or missing. Either the new lever is not pushing the rod into the master cylinder enough or, as I suspect you have air in the brake fluid. How do you know the brake fluid in one caliper is dirty but not in the other? If it were me I would bleed them both until it runs clear, starting with the one which is at the end of the brake fluid circuit. Re dot 3/5 on the reservoir cap it means you can use either Dot 3 or Dot 5 but DO NOT mix them. Dot 5 is silicon based and cannot be mixed with Dot 3, 4 or 5.1. The colour of the fluid is how you can tell which is which, silicon brake fluid is purple. Most likely you have Dot 4 brake fluid so use some more of that to top up. The difference between the Dot numbers is to do with their boiling point.
Brake discs will heat up under braking. That is normal as dynamic energy is turned into heat energy. What is not normal is for one side to heat up significantly more than the other side. That indicates that one side is working harder than the other OR the hotter side was hot before braking started - indicating that something is dragging on the disc, that could be a partially seized piston not retracting properly when braking has finished.
all of the motorcycles i've had had lever movement (new benelli bn 125) and then this when it bought it with original levers, the manual say's it shouldn't be more than one cm? it's better now that i've tightened everything, pretty much the same as my other motorcycles and as the original one i've checked the oil and it's dirty only on the right "container" i'll bleed both tomorrow, ordered dot 5.1 oil from amazon
ok so, i'm gonna bleed both and see if that fixes it. then if i still have issues, i'll ride around a bit only with the rear brake, and see if any of the discs heat up, but i think it's very unlikely as the front tire spins freely as it always did. also, is it possible that air can get in through a leak?, but oil doesn't leak out? if so, how can i spot that? also how hot is too hot? i was able to touch it for a few milliseconds, not more or i'd burn myself, consider that i was driving up and down mountain roads, and i did a lot of braking as i was testing it out. this is what a noticed, sometimes it brakes at different "power's" at the same pressure sometimes i press it really hard and it brakes, but not very hard. sometimes i press it really hard, and it brakes hard, but doesn't lock up the front tire. i'm not sure if it did when i got it, i didn't really pay attention to it, but considering these bikes don't have abs and have pretty huge brakes, it should lock up right? keep in mind i don't squeeze the lever with all of my force immediately, i put pressure incrementally, and then when i'm almost stopped i press as hard as i can, and i wasn't able to lock the front tire... maybe i'm just overthinking and i don't have a problem, and it's just that i didn't ride for 5 months so i'm getting a "placebo effect", but i think not, if it won't improve after bleeding them, i'll get a buddy of mine to ride my motorcycle, he's been riding for 40 years so he'll be able to tell immediately if there is a issue unlike my newbie ass
If you ride a distance without using the front brake you should be able to touch both disks and both callipers, nothing should be hot or even warm. If anything is hot then, as Perry said, it indicates the brake pads are binding on the disks. It may be the translation, although your English is very good in the video, but when you say ‘container’ do you mean the brake caliper attached to the fork leg and which holds the brake pads ? Im also beginning to think you may have sticky pistons in the brake caliper. Was the caliper damaged in your accident?
so i pulled out this little piston (the one that gets pushed in by the lever when you brake) and it started leaking like hell. are you supposed to be able to pull it out like that? https://imgur.com/a/0UNRKnM it came out quite easy. now i put it back inside, after all of the dirty oil came out. gonna top it off tomorrow and see if it leak. forget what i said before, i didn't explain myself properly.
