Q's Regarding Brake Pads

About two or three weeks ago I replaced the front pads with OEM Honda parts, they feel and stop great, but after a hard stop I can hear the pads rubbing with the rotors as I ride away. I don't think there's any braking force or resistance transmitted to the wheel as I accelerate but I can definitely hear the pads making contact with the rotors. My previous unidentified aftermarket pads never did this.

Also, the OEM front pads came with a single metal bracket per pair of pads, the old pads I took out had one such bracket on each pad. What's up with that?

Finally, any idea why the OEM pads are designed with a reduced friction area on the top part of the contact surface (which presumably wears away to get full contact with rotor)? Does this help bed the pads?

Regards,
Bruckner

[image: View Post]Bruckner, on Aug 1 2009, 08:21 AM, said:

About two or three weeks ago I replaced the front pads with OEM Honda parts, they feel and stop great, but after a hard stop I can hear the pads rubbing with the rotors as I ride away. I don't think there's any braking force or resistance transmitted to the wheel as I accelerate but I can definitely hear the pads making contact with the rotors. My previous unidentified aftermarket pads never did this.

Also, the OEM front pads came with a single metal bracket per pad, the old pads I took out had one such bracket on either side of each pad. What's up with that?

Finally, any idea why the OEM pads are designed with a reduced friction area on the top part of the contact surface (which presumably wears away to get full contact with rotor)? Does this help bed the pads?

Regards,
Bruckner
Good questions... lets bump it.

First of all, is this on the front wheel or both wheels? When you put the bike on the centerstand and spin the wheels, do they spin for a few seconds or stop right away, and can you hear a grinding then?

Sometimes the brackets that hold the pads don't line up perfectly and one pad rubs excessively hard, especially up front. If this is the case, try loosening up the axle, pinch bolts, and the bolts that hold the calipers in place and see if you can get it better. Some rubbing is normal.

When you installed the new pads, did you need to adjust the brake fluid levels any? Obviously, the new pads are thicker, another possibility is that your pistons are still set for thinner pads.

Any more info would be appreciated. Hard to judge if your brake pad rubbing is excessive or normal over the internet, though. Might be some way to measure it....?

[image: View Post]Ryanme17, on Aug 1 2009, 01:48 PM, said:

First of all, is this on the front wheel or both wheels? When you put the bike on the centerstand and spin the wheels, do they spin for a few seconds or stop right away, and can you hear a grinding then?

Sometimes the brackets that hold the pads don't line up perfectly and one pad rubs excessively hard, especially up front. If this is the case, try loosening up the axle, pinch bolts, and the bolts that hold the calipers in place and see if you can get it better. Some rubbing is normal.

When you installed the new pads, did you need to adjust the brake fluid levels any? Obviously, the new pads are thicker, another possibility is that your pistons are still set for thinner pads.

Any more info would be appreciated. Hard to judge if your brake pad rubbing is excessive or normal over the internet, though. Might be some way to measure it....?

I jacked up the front and I can definitely hear the rubbing although it doesn't seem to generate much friction, the wheel turns freely; I can't remember whether it produced the same noise before I changed pads. I didn't touch the fluid reservoir at all, I was satisfied with a small bubble at the top of the indicator, but it's true that I should have removed the reservoir lid to facilitate pushing the pistons in and allow for some adjustment. I will try your suggestion and see if things improve, although I must say these questions are mostly out of curiosity, the brakes work better than ever so no complaint there. And yes, I was speaking only about front brakes. I will take the bike out for a spin on the freeway and use only and as little rear brake as possible to see whether the front rotors get hot, in which case I would have a real problem of accelerated wear.

Back to the brackets, like I said the OEM parts came with only one per pair of pads (yet each one of my old pads had one of these), I ended up using one of the old brackets in order to have one bracket per pad (makes sense?). Could this be the problem?

Regards,
Bruckner

[image: View Post]Bruckner, on Aug 1 2009, 08:14 PM, said:

[image: View Post]Ryanme17, on Aug 1 2009, 01:48 PM, said:

First of all, is this on the front wheel or both wheels? When you put the bike on the centerstand and spin the wheels, do they spin for a few seconds or stop right away, and can you hear a grinding then?

Sometimes the brackets that hold the pads don't line up perfectly and one pad rubs excessively hard, especially up front. If this is the case, try loosening up the axle, pinch bolts, and the bolts that hold the calipers in place and see if you can get it better. Some rubbing is normal.

When you installed the new pads, did you need to adjust the brake fluid levels any? Obviously, the new pads are thicker, another possibility is that your pistons are still set for thinner pads.

Any more info would be appreciated. Hard to judge if your brake pad rubbing is excessive or normal over the internet, though. Might be some way to measure it....?

I jacked up the front and I can definitely hear the rubbing although it doesn't seem to generate much friction, the wheel turns freely; I can't remember whether it produced the same noise before I changed pads. I didn't touch the fluid reservoir at all, I was satisfied with a small bubble at the top of the indicator, but it's true that I should have removed the reservoir lid to facilitate pushing the pistons in and allow for some adjustment. I will try your suggestion and see if things improve, although I must say these questions are mostly out of curiosity, the brakes work better than ever so no complaint there. And yes, I was speaking only about front brakes. I will take the bike out for a spin on the freeway and use only and as little rear brake as possible to see whether the front rotors get hot, in which case I would have a real problem of accelerated wear.

Back to the brackets, like I said the OEM parts came with only one per pair of pads (yet each one of my old pads had one of these), I ended up using one of the old brackets in order to have one bracket per pad (makes sense?). Could this be the problem?

Regards,
Bruckner

I'm not sure What you mean about the brackets and the OEM pads. But if your wheel spins freely, you should be good to go! Some rubbing is always unavoidable.

Let's get some input from someone else on this. Anyone?

[image: View Post]Ryanme17, on Aug 1 2009, 07:09 PM, said:

I'm not sure What you mean about the brackets and the OEM pads. But if your wheel spins freely, you should be good to go! Some rubbing is always unavoidable.

I knew this part was confusing.. let's take the right side package of OEM brake pads, it comes with a pair of pads and only one metal bracket (which is designed to go on one of the two pads, it is not interchangeable), in other words only one of the two pads will have a bracket on it; same deal on left side. Now, I guess that's alright, but when I pulled out the old pads (which were not the same design as the Honda pads), each pad had its own bracket. So, I ended up cleaning up the old bracket that was missing in the OEM package and installed it (same on the other side), so each one of my four front brake pads has a bracket (2 new OEM ones, 2 old ones), if I had stuck to the OEM parts only 2 of the 4 front pads would have one. I found nothing in the workshop manual about this. Could be my problem since the extra bracket, though thin, uses some room the caliper and OEM pad may not be designed to accomodate when the pad is "thick as new". I'm only speculating.. or punching a hole in water.. I don't know! I still think it's weird!

Regards,
Bruckner

Did you clean the pistons before pushing them back in the caliper? That could cause the drag, but if the wheel turns freely it may not be serious, but could get worse.

The OEM pads are beveled to prevent vibration and brake squeal.

[image: View Post]Bruckner, on Aug 2 2009, 01:28 AM, said:

[image: View Post]Ryanme17, on Aug 1 2009, 07:09 PM, said:

I'm not sure What you mean about the brackets and the OEM pads. But if your wheel spins freely, you should be good to go! Some rubbing is always unavoidable.

I knew this part was confusing.. let's take the right side package of OEM brake pads, it comes with a pair of pads and only one metal bracket (which is designed to go on one of the two pads, it is not interchangeable), in other words only one of the two pads will have a bracket on it; same deal on left side. Now, I guess that's alright, but when I pulled out the old pads (which were not the same design as the Honda pads), each pad had its own bracket. So, I ended up cleaning up the old bracket that was missing in the OEM package and installed it (same on the other side), so each one of my four front brake pads has a bracket (2 new OEM ones, 2 old ones), if I had stuck to the OEM parts only 2 of the 4 front pads would have one. I found nothing in the workshop manual about this. Could be my problem since the extra bracket, though thin, uses some room the caliper and OEM pad may not be designed to accomodate when the pad is "thick as new". I'm only speculating.. or punching a hole in water.. I don't know! I still think it's weird!

Regards,
Bruckner

Oh, the thin piece of metal that goes around the pad, between the pad and the caliper? I would assume they are both supposed to have one....

[image: View Post]Ryanme17, on Aug 2 2009, 09:42 AM, said:

Oh, the thin piece of metal that goes around the pad, between the pad and the caliper? I would assume they are both supposed to have one....

I assumed the same thing. Why would Honda supply only one such metal brackets per pair of pads?

Regarding the cleaning up of the pistons, I'd love to know how this gets done. Blowing pressurized air inside the caliper before putting pads in? How to access? The procedure in the workshop manual is to press the caliper against the rotor to push the pistons in, take the pads out, then clean the pistons (which I have no clue how to do).

By the way, the rubbing I speak about is audible only after hard braking, and usually lasts for only a few seconds as I accelerate away.

Regards,
Bruckner

[image: View Post]Bruckner, on Aug 3 2009, 08:09 AM, said:

I assumed the same thing. Why would Honda supply only one such metal brackets per pair of pads?
It's an 'anti-rattle' shim. I'm just guessing here, but I assume the reason there's only one supplied is because they're usually quite serviceable and don't wear out, so don't usually need replacing. They're also very cheap to make (just stamped out of thin sheet metal), so it's no big deal to include some in with the pads.
Interestingly (or perhaps not) the workshop manual makes no special mention of them.

[image: View Post]Bruckner, on Aug 2 2009, 03:09 PM, said:

[image: View Post]Ryanme17, on Aug 2 2009, 09:42 AM, said:

Oh, the thin piece of metal that goes around the pad, between the pad and the caliper? I would assume they are both supposed to have one....

I assumed the same thing. Why would Honda supply only one such metal brackets per pair of pads?

Regarding the cleaning up of the pistons, I'd love to know how this gets done. Blowing pressurized air inside the caliper before putting pads in? How to access? The procedure in the workshop manual is to press the caliper against the rotor to push the pistons in, take the pads out, then clean the pistons (which I have no clue how to do).

By the way, the rubbing I speak about is audible only after hard braking, and usually lasts for only a few seconds as I accelerate away.

Regards,
Bruckner

Those metal shims only need to go on the piston side and as the VFR's only have pistons on one side so only one shim is needed. Unlike most sport bike that squeeze the pads/rotors from both sides(pistons on each side of caliper), the VFR just pushes from one side and it pulls the other side pads into the rotors.
On the drag, unless you install new rotors at he same time as pads it will take some time for the new pads to seat against the irregular surface of a used rotor. It should run freer after that bed in. :blush:

The shim does nothing as far as I can tell.
I replaced my pads with EBC HH, got more feel as a result.
The EBC's did not come with shims, but I did save them from the OEM's just in case.
Again, the shim does nothing as far as I can tell.

Mac

[image: View Post]Bruckner, on Aug 2 2009, 04:09 PM, said:

[image: View Post]Ryanme17, on Aug 2 2009, 09:42 AM, said:

Oh, the thin piece of metal that goes around the pad, between the pad and the caliper? I would assume they are both supposed to have one....

I assumed the same thing. Why would Honda supply only one such metal brackets per pair of pads?

Regarding the cleaning up of the pistons, I'd love to know how this gets done. Blowing pressurized air inside the caliper before putting pads in? How to access? The procedure in the workshop manual is to press the caliper against the rotor to push the pistons in, take the pads out, then clean the pistons (which I have no clue how to do).

By the way, the rubbing I speak about is audible only after hard braking, and usually lasts for only a few seconds as I accelerate away.

Regards,
Bruckner
For cleaning here's what I do:
I took the calipers off the bike, and off the brake lines. Since they are one sided, on my '99 I could use compressed air to blow out the pistons and the opposite side (on the '99, don't know about others. Probably the same) will catch the pistons from flying out across the garage. Then I took the calipers apart and the pistons come right out. I basically scrubbed each piston with a shop towel and some Orange Blast degreaser on the tough spots. Some will tell you that you will die instantly if don't replace the seals with new rather than remove and clean them. I just removed and cleaned them. They are all still very pliable with no tears or damage of any kind. Cleaned them via the same method as the pistons, inspected, and put them back in with DOT4 to lube them. Coat the cleaned pistons with DOT4 and stick them back in. Some will tell you that the new seals only cost $x.xx, so why take a chance. I encourage those that feel that way to purchase and install new seals!
Alternatively, you could leave the calipers attached to the lines and just push the pistons out a little more and scrub whatever exposed area you see with a shop cloth and some degreasing agent. Then push the pistons all the way back in before new pads go on. Once everything is back on the bike, pump the lever until it is tight and check your reservoir level.

[image: View Post]Baileyrock, on Aug 2 2009, 04:51 PM, said:

On the drag, unless you install new rotors at he same time as pads it will take some time for the new pads to seat against the irregular surface of a used rotor. It should run freer after that bed in. :blush:

Wow! That was so obvious I never would've seen it. Yes, new pads need to bed in. Duh.... BR is right, your wheel turns freely but will make noise because it isn't bedded in yet.