Front brake too tight

[alehman]

Hi all,

As I disassembled my forks to put in progressive springs and change the seals, I also removed my front brake caliper. Now that I look at it off of the rotor, the pads are too close together and it probably can't be put back over the rotor. Even before I took it off, the caliper must've been gripping the rotor even when the brake wasn't applied because in the fall the front brake was squealing all the time when I rode at low speed. I've familiarized myself with much of the bike since I got it but I still know nothing about the front brake system. How would you progress with this?

[shultz_1978]

The squealing could just be your rotor is glazed. Simple use some fine sand paper on it.( both sides ) As for the pads being to close. I would go through the steps of replacing the pad. Compress the piston in the caliper and then put the pads back in.

Once you are done with putting it back together. Try your brake and see if it is draging when you release them.

Then start from there. Good luck

[LukeM]

The procedure in the Factory Service Manual (available from the home page of our forum) has a very good procedure on how to replace pads on the front brake. It is recommended that the brakes be bled afterwards. There are several postings on how to do this, from speed bleeders to pump oil cans.  Do a search on those terms and see which one agrees with you.

Make sure that your pads are well seated in the caliper.  Sometimes if they're not all the way down, the pads will hang up.  Also, if there's crud in your caliper, and you collapse the cylinder in the caliper, it will pick up some of that crud and not move freely.  I had that happen to an old minivan, and 2 miles of driving with a stuck caliper fried the rotor, the pads, and the caliper itself.  Expensive lesson.

Sandpaper, emery cloth, steel wool, all will work as long as it's not too aggressive a grit.  You just want to knock down the shiny stuff.

Hope this helps.
Luke M

[TOOLS1]

Just push the piston back in the caliper. This will give you plenty of room to reinstall the caliper over the rotor. Then work the break lever several times to get the caliper reset. Then check to see if the wheel will spin freely.
TOOLS