Front brake locking up, ZTL / Gafler / Nissan - PLEASE HELP!

[vtech007]

Please excuse the typos contained in the above title. Of course it should read "Galfer" and "Nissin" (blame auto spell check).

Been running the combination of ZTL front brake caliper and Nissin radial front brake master cylinder on my 2005 Buell XB12R Firebolt for some time with no issues. This combination for the front brakes worked great. All new parts were installed by a local independent motorcycle shop I trust and have dealt with for years, that has very regretably since gone out of business.

Following the above mods back when, I purchased a new Galfer front brake rotor and new mounting hardware with the intention of completing the front brake upgrade, but just have not had the time to install it myself. Finally gave in and took it to my local Harley Davidson dealer service shop (gulp! - I knew better, that's why I haven't done so before now), to have them only perform the installation of the new Galfer rotor and new rotor mounting hardware that I provided to them, and that is when this nightmare started.

They claimed they have one tech who they consider to be their "Buell specialist" (spoke to him once briefly after the trouble below started, says he has owned four Buells and wishes he still had his last one). He installed the Galfer rotor and said the front brake system was working fine on the shop stand. He took it out on their 1-mile test ride loop and says during the test ride the front brake locked up on him, and he had to get help to get the bike back to the shop.

They called me in, explained what happened and said they suspected the Nissin radial front master cylinder was bad, causing the front brakes to lock up. They asked me if I still had the original parts that came off of the Buell, namely the master cylinder, which I told them I thought I retained in a box somewhere as I do not recall getting rid of it, and they were animate that the original master cylinder needed to be on the bike. WTF.

Anyway, I couldn't find the original master cylinder, and even if I did, I was set on not taking what I considered to be a step backwards in my mods on the Buell. Following their diagnosis, I purchased a brand new Nissin radial master cylinder from Schnitz Racing and had it shipped overnight. They installed it, and same thing happened - front brake locked up. They were again animate about installing all the original brake components that came off the Buell.

After I still couldn't find the original parts from the Buell, I suggested they check into the shim combination they were using on the Galfer rotor to be sure they had the offsets correct (I seemed to recall reading about that on the forum), but as a last resort I told them I am ready to concede and for them to just put the brakes like they were when I brought the Buell to them (with the original stock rotor). They did that, and say it is now STILL locking up. Now they say the ZTL caliper is bad.

To me it seems obvious they do not know what they are doing. Now - get this - they want me to tow away the non-ridable motorcycle and pay them for the hours of labor they have put into it. In other words, I bring them a working motorcycle and they want me to tow away my now non-working motorcycle and pay them for the "favor".

I am going to ask for a meeting with the dealership owner and let them know I dispute this entire fiasco.

How I regret taking them my Buell.

Of course this still leaves me with wanting to finish what I set out to do. Any thoughts or suggestions to address and fix the root cause of the brakes locking up is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[vtech007]

Thank you for your reply. Of course this process, now in its third week, has been frustrating. The intention of my post was not to merely vent, but to seek answers as ulimately I would really like to run the intended ZTL / Galfer / Nissin combination. I would be extremely grateful for any help with possible causes or potential solutions. lunaticfringe, you and your presence and particiapation here have always been a tremendous help to me on numerous occasions in the past and invaluable in my further enjoyment of the Buell. Thank you again.

 

[rchuff]

Do you have aftermarket brake levers on it? If so they could be your problem. Just a shot in the dark not knowing what they did.

 

[Silverrider]

Good question ^^^^^ lets see some pics

 

[vtech007]

Thank you for the suggestion. It does have aftermarket levers.

Of course the motorcycle is at the shop so I can't take any photos. I had tons of photos uploaded here once upon a time, but they all disappeared at the time when the forum changed site sponsors or whatever. Will see if I can find some photos I might have saved on my old defunct laptop if I can get to them.

 

[vtech007]

I am open to advice and recommendations including what you would do next. I ask you to put yourself in my place now. Think about your Buell. Think about, what if this happened to you. Not, "what WOULD you have done at the start", as that is not instructive - but, "what would you do NOW, moving forward"? What would you do now if you suddenly found yourself in these exact circumstances? Myself, if I do not get what I consider to be a satisfactory result when I meet with the dealership owner, my next step is to seek legal adivice to determine if I may have a small claims court case.

 

[d_adams]

Not knowing your level of experience/expertise, I can only assume it's not assembled correctly and is dragging and causing the brake fluid to boil and then lock the front wheel.

This would be the correct configuration of the mounting hardware.



Personally, I'd find the time to do the work myself unless it's flat out brand new warranty work and I trusted the servicing dealer.

In your case, I'd go to the manager and try reaching some form of resolution, ie; less pay for the work they screwed up on your bike. It's obviously NOT working now and did when you brought it to them for the upgrades. The tech in question is not competent, regardless of what everyone is saying about how good he is or how many bikes he's worked on.

 

[user_deleted]

Thank you for your reply. Of course this process, now in its third week, has been frustrating. The intention of my post was not to merely vent, but to seek answers as ulimately I would really like to run the intended ZTL / Galfer / Nissin combination. I would be extremely grateful for any help with possible causes or potential solutions. lunaticfringe, you and your presence and particiapation here have always been a tremendous help to me on numerous occasions in the past and invaluable in my further enjoyment of the Buell. Thank you again.

thanks for the very kind words. i'm going to give you things to check...steps to take...and considerations.
for starters anytime you change parts to aftermarket or swap OEM for different years OEM parts you need to compare those parts to the stock items. whoever is working on this now should check the following: the replacement pads are NOT noticeably thicker than the stock pads....the replacement rotor is NO MORE than 1mm thicker than the stock rotor....that the master cylinder is not air-bound. after those checks are made do the following:
1-remove fluid from master cylinder. you will see 2 tiny holes in the reservoir. one is constant fluid replacement hole....the other is pressure relief hole. both must be free and clear. if blocked simply clean and ream out with acetylene torch tip file.
2-with everything attached...system bled....all in good order....and front wheel off the ground....simply spin wheel and squeeze lever. should lock up wheel. NOW release lever and slowly spin the wheel and wiggle it laterally. just that simple movement is sufficient to back the pads off the rotor. if NOT you have either one or more sticking caliper pistons....sticking master cylinder piston....air in system....OR what ricky said INSUFFICIENT CLEARANCE between the tip of the lever and the tip of the master cylinder plunger.
3-last thing to check is that when all is assembled correctly the rotor absolutely must run in the center of the caliper area between the pistons.
buell brake systems are ridiculously simple as there's no gizmos or ABS to take into consideration when trouble-shooting. your problem is quite simple. simply put either the parts don't match up....the master cylinder plunger is sticking in the master cylinder bore....the bleed-off hole is clogged or blocked...pads too thick...one or more pistons stuck in its bore...or lever to plunger tip clearance non-existent.
NOTE: i was never a fan of aftermarket levers. be absolutely certain the lever is free and moves easily in its perch....and the clearance that i mentioned above.
the above will resolve this for you.

look at the pic dean posted up for you. 3rd item from the right is the rotor alignment washer. the rounded portion always faces in towards the rotor. if assembled incorrectly the rotor will bind up when the bolts are torqued to spec.

 

[Outlaw]

Being a Chrysler tech some of the strangest issues I see at the dealer is customer or customers mechanic installed. You and the tech should look at what you just changed on your bike. It worked before and now it doesn't. Hard to be mad at the dealer if they installed the parts you supplied and now there is an issue.

 

[BuellyBagger]

I'm going to tell you what I would do in this situation. I can say from experience dealing with inconpatent technicians at the auto dealer I work at and lazy and incompetent techs @the harley shop I had taken my bike to in the past. Id Go get the bike, tell them you'll pay the original (I hope no more than an hour maybe 1.5) labor for installing the rotor and nothing more. Take the bike home and carefully follow John's instructions. Take it as a lesson that if you're going to do modifications to your motorcycle you'd better be able to do it yourself or don't do it. Dealer techs are trained to do warranty work and recalls not do custom work. Not only that, they don't want to... it usually turns out to be a no paying PITA

 

[Cooter]

This is not a "Buell thing" it is a "motorcycle thing". There is nothing special about the Buell brake system they shouldn't know before they committed to working on it. If they didn't know, they should have turned you away at the door. They took your money and need to provide you the result they promised (a working brake system).

To fix the bike, Lunatic has layed out the clear path of the right things to check. You (or they) can use the close up pics in the first post (below) for proper orientation of the hardware and square-ISH rotor spacers.

https://www.buellxb.com/forum/showthread.php?48151-EBR-Racing-front-rotor-install-instructions

The Nissan radial caliper shouldn't have the typical 'wrong aftermarket levers on a Buell makes the front brakes lock up' BUT make sure the aftermarket levers you have on that master cylinder aren't compressing the piston at rest. Make SURE there is a little clearance between the lever plunger and the master cylinder piston.

To fix the situation:
1) Know what you want. Personally I wouldn't pay a dime, but thats up to you.
2) Take all your paperwork, have your facts straight, especially what you have already done for them and how much it cost you.
3) SET AN APPOINTMENT and go in and speak to the person in charge. Be polite, and be FIRM about what you want.

Know this: If they won't agree to the terms you want, they won't release the bike to you. That's fine, you can't ride it anyway. Set up a small claims dispute if it's worth your time.
Don't think paying them, then disputing the charges is a good idea either. Your payment (and signing the work order) is your agreement to pay them, so don't do that if you don't agree.

IMO, by them saying "its the master cylinder" then oops, "its the caliper" tells me they don't know anything. Whats next? 'its the brake line'? theres nothing else left to swap!

 

[Outlaw]

My money is on the rotor fitment or improper installation of said rotor.

 

[vtech007]

Thank you, all. I am taking into complete consideration all you have posted.

Interesting that the dealer re-installed the original stock rotor and now it is still locking up. Off hand it does seem like they may not installing the rotor correctly.

 

[Cooter]

http://i1243.photobucket.com/albums...to share/Correct Installation_zpsf2zfjftj.jpg

That's important ^^^^

 

[vtech007]

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Here is the rest of the story.

I rented (!) a trailer to pick up the Buell from the Harley repair shop, like the shop told me to. When I arrived, the service manager who had been dealing with me wasn't there, and I fortunately spoke to a lead service manager. I told him I was told to pick up my non-working motorcycle, he grabbed the invoice on which was billed nearly $700 in labor (!) for all the time they spent (wasted). When I explained to him why I was there and a synopsis of the ordeal, he was like whoa, this is just not right, went and spoke to the head service manager, when they both wanted to talk to me. After having me explaining to them in detail all that had taken place, they embarrassingly apologized and asked me if I was willing to give them an opportunity to personally have a go at troubleshooting the problem.

Picked up the Buell from the dealer repair shop today. Bottom line is this story has a happy ending in that the shop succeeded in installing the Galfer wave rotor and (finally) figured out the problem with the brakes locking up. The root cause was apparently obstruction of the brake line. The dealer proved this out by installing the brake rotor and brake line removed from the dealership owners' personal Buell (you got that, right - this Harley Davidson dealership owner doesn't ride a Harley - she rides a Buell). After the system worked with this combination, they apparently blew out my brake line with compressed air before they installed it and all the rest of my front brake parts back on the Buell and everything worked. They reduced the bill to the standard amount of labor to remove and replace a front rotor. I could have fought that, but I stayed the good guy, glad this 4 week mess was over. My test drive was my 20 mile ride home, and I can say at this interim that this front brake combination is quite good indeed. I highly recommend this mod. I just hope that, if you don't do it yourself, who you have do it knows what they are doing.

Thank you again for the advice, everyone.

 

[Outlaw]

Glad you got it fixed

 

[BuellyBagger]

Good deal! I'm glad that there's still some good folks in shops out there. Ask them if THEY can fix a rocker box leak on a milwaukee 8 the first time?! (long story)

 

[Chicknstripn]

I’m glad I have the time, tools and patience to my own maintenance.
I’d hate having to put my bike in someone else’s hands.

Glad your bike is sorted out.

And I’m happy to hear they didn’t try to stick you with a $700 bill for their lack of brake trouble shooting expertise.

My advice, if you have to pay someone to do work for you, find another shop. The shop you had your bike at obviously values their time more than yours.

 

[Cooter]

Glad it worked out. Seems like you talked to the right person this time. Keep their card handy!
It wouldn't hurt to hit up their bike-nights once in awhile to glad hand the owner as well.

It's a shame you even need to do that to get good service, but thats the world we live in:sorrow:

 

[user_deleted]

The root cause was apparently obstruction of the brake line.

a blocked or obstructed or collapsed or clogged brake hose OR line will NOT allow the system to be bled.....will not pressurize the caliper activating the pistons....will not allow pressure to be relieved. don't recall anything being mentioned in your posts regarding numbers 1&2.