Brake update - what a difference! By yoster (Read 865 times)

[yoster]

So I got the new brake assembly (master cylinder, hose, caliper and pads) in today. It was all one unit off a scooter - with fluid still in it - it actually functioned and compressed the caliper right out the box lol.


So anyway, I took the MC off the hose, put it on mine, and I could IMMEDIATELY tell a difference. The brakes actually wanted to bleed this time! Before, nothing came out of that nipple. Now, brake fluid was flowin' like crazy. With some help from the wife and 15-month old, the brakes were ready to go.

Here's one thing I noticed. I kept bleeding it and bleeding it and bleeding it, expecting it to get as hard as it originally was. You see, when the scooter was new, the rear brake lever was super hard. I mean, 1/4 of an inch was all it would go until it engaged the brake. The stopping power back there was never that great, but I chalked that up to normal rear-brake operation. So while bleeding these, it never got that hard. In fact I could squeeze it down all the way to about an inch from the handle. I finally said forget it, I'm taking it out to test.

WOW - The left handle is a lot softer now but MAN it stops WAYYYY better. It's FAR smoother now too. The front brake, which I previously thought stopped well, now has LESS stopping power than the rear. I can, for the first time, lock the rear up if I wanted to.

So, is this how it's supposed to be? Should I bleed my front brake now as well? Because it's a tad 'harder' than the back brake, but definitely not as smooth as the back.

All in all very happy with the stopping performance now! Didn't expect this to happen at all.. I would have been just happy as a clam getting it to stop like it did previously.

[JR]

Mine were similar even on my Bali 150 and to me it seems as if the inside rubbers were stiff or something and the fluid was very dark too even though I replaced it when I did the PDI.

So I flushed all my brakes out and as I did it I added a little brake cleaner to the fluid and then I replaced all the fluid with the Prestone synthetic type brake fluid and bled them very good and man my brakes now are soft and will stop on a dime. If it goes down that far you've still got a air bubble or two in it.

JR

[richardthescooter3]

Yoster, I know bleeding those brakes can be a pain I had a similar experience with mine, I couldn't get the air out no matter how many times I bled the rear brakes, :-/so I took advice from JR with mc cap off sqeezing the brak handle a little at a time the air bubbles came to the top and now were good to go. (good to hear your back on the road) Happy Scootering

[yoster]

Thanks guys.

Ya I drove the scooter to work today. I'll have to say, this bleeding process should be REQUIRED in the PDI. Thinking back how it stopped before (which I thought was fine at the time,) now seems darn right unsafe! I'm definitely going to bleed the front brake this weekend.. that back brake is just too awesome not to do it to the front.

JR I also noticed what you were saying about the fluid color. The back brake, with my new fluid I bought at wally world, is nice and clear, almost like water. The front brake, with the OEM stuff, is like a dark color.. kind of like slightly used motor oil (not DARK, but not clear either.)

Hey Richard - Ya the bleeding was a pain, but in hindsight I actually ad it 'bled' about 8 'pumps of the handle' before I stopped. I was looking for it to get HARD like it was before (hard as in, can't even hardly pull the handle past 1/4") which turns out is not how it's supposed to operate! Man I did get ticked though the first time I was trying to bleed it on the bad master cylinder. Not knowing it was bad, as in not working, at the time, I spend a good 30 minutes trying to bleed it.. thinking.. "MAN this thing has a lot of air in it!" Once I swapped out the master cylinder with this new one, holy moly, it went fast!

[nulldevice]

May 17, 2012 5:19:55 GMT -6 JR said:

Mine were similar even on my Bali 150 and to me it seems as if the inside rubbers were stiff or something and the fluid was very dark too even though I replaced it when I did the PDI.

So I flushed all my brakes out and as I did it I added a little brake cleaner to the fluid and then I replaced all the fluid with the Prestone synthetic type brake fluid and bled them very good and man my brakes now are soft and will stop on a dime. If it goes down that far you've still got a air bubble or two in it.

JR

Is that a special brake fluid cleaner additive, or what you would use on the outside to clean the parts?