Piss poor brakes in the piss poring rain.

V

Vince

Hero member
The brakes I have on my 3C are fantastic wet or Dry.Thats a Radial master,braided lines to 4 spot callipers on 280mm drilled disc's.Tried riding my Pantah in a real heavy down pour today and had far from good front brakes.I thought that only happened with stainless disc's.The Pantah had a lot of my old Laverda brakes on it.Standard round reservoir,rubber lines,2 piston with dual bleed nipple callipers and again 280mm drilled disc's.Marty had similar problems,it was bloody wet as hell.
The pads in the Pantah are HH EBC,I thought those being sintered were suppose to be great in the wet.Anyone found better results out there,I hear it sometimes rain a bit in more northerly places in the world than Sunny Sydney.
 
EBC Carbon/organic pads work pretty well on the standard discs.  Those rubber lines must be past their best.  The master cylinder/caliper piston ratio is not ideal, but that's not news.
 
Always used the EBC green stuff pads on cast discs on the Monty and never found them wanting.
Make sure you buy from a main stockists as there are some dodgy copies around, bit of green paint and some old
backing cards = cost X 4.

I use the sintered HH Ferodo pads on stainless discs on the ballistic sofa, which weighs about the same as a triple and they work very well.
In heavy rain it's worth starting to brake lightly early just to get a bit of heat into the pads and it keeps the feel more consistent when you really need it.
 
I've been using Ferodo Platinum for the Guzzi Haven't had a bad moment in 40000 miles in wet or dry. That's not to say they are single finger usable like modern brakes, just reliable and more there if you want to squeeze harder. :D
 
BREV Laverda drums may not have the over all stopping power of disc's when it's dry but they work great in the rain.
 
Hi Cosi,

yep, 120 stops pretty good in the rain, but this was a torrential downpour, pelting rain.  Not much is going to work in that, apart from the drum rear.  Coffee was good, breakfast was sausage roll with the works, OK I guess.  Place was interesting, but not a destination for a sunday ride.  Who rides INTO the city?

Marty
 
Laverda SF said:
BREV Laverda drums may not have the over all stopping power of disc's when it's dry but they work great in the rain.
Click to expand...

Just wish I could figure out how to get them set up properly, from matching shoes to drum to all the adjustments necessary to get the SF1 front brake right.  I know mine is not working properly, but have no idea how to go about setting it up.  Going to try to chase down a drum brake specialist for bikes in Sydney..

If anyone has to time and inclination to post a paper on the subject, I'd be grateful to learn from it.

Yogi
 
My drum brakes stops instantly :D common mistake is that when you send ''brake pads'' refurbished they put on same friction material as they use for cars but this is wrong. Whell it will stop you too but you have to press brake lever very hard. So i send my pads to another company in italy that put different friction material and now i use a lot less force on lever and brakes superb.

Before i install brake assembly on my bike i put it in lathe and turn down friction material so it is working on full surface from beginning. No running in :D
 
I seem to remember differant shoe material for fronts and rear.AM4 and AM2.Thats pretty fuzzy in the memory
 
I always found it best to have the brake applied while tightening the axle to provide final "centering" of the shoes to the drum. Ensures both shoes contact at the same time with equal pressure.

Wayne
 
Bigdaddy said:
I always found it best to have the brake applied while tightening the axle to provide final "centering" of the shoes to the drum. Ensures both shoes contact at the same time with equal pressure.

Wayne
Click to expand...
Thanks Wayne,

I tried that and found some improvement in doing so, but I think machining shoes to fit drum is the first port of call.  Just wondering if there is a fixed procedure for setting up linkage adjustment, and whether that is all there is too setting up the front drum brake (later model, SF1).

Yogi
 
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