After six months or so of slight pulsing from the rear brake I’ll finally be replacing the rear brake disc. As a daily commuter on the GS I decided to wait until the current pads were worn out so I could start with a fresh set. In this case I matched a Braking brand wavy rotor with the Braking brand pads. I’ll also be taking the opportunity to sand and grease the caliper pin, which can wear and cause poor performance.
Step one of course was removing the caliper and pulling the old rotor off. Caliper is super easy to remove. The rotor requires a bit of heat to each bolt and a torx bit long enought to clear the housing. I used a butane torch and a torx bit in an extension driver with a bit of painters tape to protect the final drive.
Out with the old and in with the new. Wavy rotors look waaaay cooler than OEM. Oh yeah, and they dissipate heat better or some such. After the old rotor came off the bolts got the wire brush treatment and the bolt holes needed some cleaning to remove the old thread locking compound.
Once everything is cleaned up, including removal of the coating on the new rotor, time to install. New thread locker is needed for each bolt.
Back in the way it came out. I fitted the first bolt and snugged it down so I could spin the rotor an do the opposing bolt to prevent the rotor from flopping everywhere. Once you snug them all up they get an inital torque of 12 nm, then a final of 30 nm.
Braking brand recommends new pads to bed in a new rotor. Lucky me I hads some. What no one ever mentions is the perfect storm they both make. I’m still amazed I even got the caliper back on with those new pads. Almost took longer than the whole rest of the process.
My caliper pad pin is pretty well at its service limit by next pad change. I greased the caliper with moly at all the good spots and will order a new pin set with my next pads.
200 mile break in after the inital bed in process. I commute on my bike so that was about a week but it feels like forever. With the new short levers I installed the brakes feel great and work great too. We’ll see how they do now the rain is back. I’ll post an update after some good wet weather commuting.