Brake drag.

..you fix one problem and another arrives! I'm hoping some of you experts can help me please.

I replaced the bad fork seal in my bros and that went great; no more oil on the forks. I carefully put everything back together, making sure the guide lines on the triple clamps matched the fork heads etc etc.

Now, I put the wheel back on and slid the caliper up onto the disc. The 4 brake pistons were fully retracted. I gave the wheel a spin and it went forever, so I thought all was good as it wasn't scratching the edge of the caliper at all.

I pumped the front brakes a until they made contact with the disc, I made sure they were working fine and went off on a 1.5 mile test ride, doing about 40mph or so. When I got back i noticed the front disc was hot which was very unusual.

I jacked the front of the bike up and spun the wheel and it is evident that the pads are dragging a bit. The wheel will only spin a quarter turn or so. Now i'm pretty sure the steering and wheel is aligned ok so I dont know what the problem is..

Is it possible that the dragging will go away after a little while? The pads have about 3-4mm compound but should I replace them? Any other ideas? I'm afraid the disc will get warped with the heat. Apologies if I left anything out - just ask if you need to know anything. Thanks!

Pigeon Reaper

Where the discs hot to touch or just warm? If they're warm it's normal enough if you're breaking alot. When you took the caliper off and put it on could the alignment have changed? Do you feeling any pulsing when breaking? Also did you touch the brake fluid or bleed the brakes when you where doing the forks? I also wonder if the forks could be slightly turned out of alignment. I don;t know how this could happen but it's worth checking.

Thanks for the reply. I can walk the bike around in neutral no problem and there's no dip in the forks so they're not noticeably grabbing. The brakes also work very well - a little better than before actually.

The disc is hot, You could touch if for half a second. I crashed my TDR before and warped the front disc and rode it home and the disc was red hot. It's nowhere near that bad now but still too hot to grab.

Both forks are aligned with the lines on them matching up to the triple clamps. If they are off it would be by less than half a millimetre. The axle is also installed to so it's guide line is just where it meets the forks. It looks like one pad is rubbing againt it slightly.

Sorry, was rambling. To answer your other questions:

I dont feel any pulsing during braking
I didn't go near the fluid at all or bleed the brakes - should I?

Thanks again.

Took the bike out for a 3.5 mile run this am. The problem seemed less and brake performance was great - sorting out the right fork seems to have made braking feel much more 'safe'. The disc was still hotter than before I did the hob but not as hot as yesterday which is strange because I only did 0.5 miles yesterday.

bushy...

Did you clean the brake pistons before you pushed them back in ? if not it will lead to the brake dragging (also the reason why the brake seems better,the pad is already touching the disc so no lever travel is used up before the brake actually starts to work)

Pigeon Reaper

Probably the pistons not going back in fully. It's worth taking them off to clean them if you haven't. It could also be due to the coating on new pads. Keep an eye on the heat of the disc but bear in mind how much heavy braking you might be doing. a few Kms in traffic will heat them up alot more than hours of riding.

Thanks again. The problem has solved itself after a good ride. Discs are not too hot to touch (after no major braking) and brake action is good too.