TOPIC:

I just put new pads on the rear of my 82 kz1000 LTD and the rear brake is dragging. If I loosen up the two bolts that hold the caliper to the carrier, the dragging goes away. I checked the sliders and they are ok...

I disconnected the torque link in the garage and the wheel turned freely. Is there some kind of alignment that I have to do for this? It's totally wierd that this could cause a problem...

Help!

could piston in caliper be hanging up?

Is your rear wheel "aligned" with the front wheel and running true?

I checked out the caliper and its not binding... I started tinking along the lines that it was not aligned right. It's a used bike I have bought and been working on for a while now. In riding it around the neighborhood it seems ok but that is something I will check this morning.

thanks

I had the same problem on my 82 750. I fought that thing for three months. I don't know how many times I bled the brakes, opened and cleaned the rear and master cylinders. I even replaced the seals in both. I could not find the bind and I would lose the rear brakes after a couple miles. My kids hated to see me go toward the bike because they knew I would be calling them to help me bleed the brakes again. I finally took it to a local (25 miles away cause they are the only ones who would work on an old bike) shop and they fixed it. Nothing wrong, just had to be better at bleeding them than me. I did get to buy one of those single person bleeder kits so it wasn't for nothing. I think it is all in the care bleeding.

Interesting... how could having air in the brakes make them bind up? Strange!

My fronts seem ok, they drag a little bit but are bedding in from using the front brake.

The rear however is different - it binds up when I tighten all the bolts down on the caliper, the ones that mount to the sliders (the metal rods the caliper bolts to that slides in the carrier).

I'm disassembling it now to see what the problem is.

I took off the front calipers and cleaned the sliders, no issues there. I found that the PO had put some kind of a compound like JB-Weld on the pistons and seated them flush with the pads - maybe to keep them from squeaking? Anyway this screws up my new pads as the extra .020" doesn't give me enough clearance and the pads drag.

So... I'm off to Lowes to buy a dremel as this stuff is too hard to cut off with a gasket scraper and I don't want to take the darn pistons out AGAIN.

The back caliper had a bent slider, which I fixed and it still drags a little bit, so I need to check its' piston for JB-Weld.

freakin' amazing.

Some people should not be allowed to work on motorcycles. The bike i bought had been worked on by an idiot.
They bought the wrong battery. It wouldn't fit so they forced the hinged gate that holdes the battery to get a bolt in it. That broke the hinge.
The battery cable would not work with this battery so they bent the selenoid holder to make it work.
I think they used a 1/2 in. drive rachet to tighten the battery cable to the selenoid as they stripped the threads off of it.
I don't know how many bikes i've bought that i undone what the PO had done and everything is fine.
Roy

Make sure the bolts, that hold the calipers together, let calipers slide freely. Mine had the grommet torn and the dirt got in. The calipers won't retract if those pins aren't clean and lubed. ,BK

Well... I got a great Dremel and ground off the bakelite-type part on the face of the brake piston... afterwards I checked an old set of calipers I had in the attic and that part is original factory.

Yikes!!!!

All I can figure is that the newer brake pads are thicker or they make them to fit more models or ? Anyway, my brake pads have very thick steel backing plates, and grinding this bakelite piece flush enabled the brake pads to fit and they only drag a little bit. I would expect new pads to drag just a little, and I expect these to bed in within a few miles. I'll give them 100 miles max to get in shape.

I also took the opportunity and cleaned and torqued the brake bolts using Loctite. Test ride tonight and report to follow.