HELP!! Brake Drag after front tire change

[Willie P]

hi, I recently removed front wheel (myself) and then had a reputable shop perform the tire change.

I put the front wheel back on myself. It now seems there is excessive front brake drag. I do know that with disc brakes there is SOME drag. However, I need to use two fingers to move the wheel around a revolution (while bike is elevated from the ground. I cannot give it a "price is right" spin and have the wheel spin freely. IS THIS OKAY/NORMAL?

if not; where might my problem be?
+I did read other posts here and BWB about reinstall issues relating to grabbing the brake lever, etc (which I did not do).
+HOWEVER, I will say that when I initially removed the wheel, the wheel "fell down" to the ground while in the caliper and the rotor got wedged (in between the pads) a little bit. I had to shimmy the wheel out just a little. I might have been a little ham-fisted in doing this. Might I have caused a problem here? perhaps pushed one caliper piston inward (but I cannot see how pushing a piston inward would cause a problem)?
+I also discovered the supposed excess drag AFTER a 100 mile ride - I had no ill riding issues or braking and I was doing some pretty tight turns at speed and noticed no "dive" or tram-lining due the brakes grabbing or anything. brakes were also fade free for the entire ride.
+I just want to make sure I'm not prematurely wearing the pads, causing gas mileage issues or boiling the fluid while riding.

thanks for any light you can shed on this subject

willie

 

[user_deleted]

willie: not being there during your removal/reinstall i can't say if you for certain if you damaged anything sufficiently to cause this problem but the front and rear brake systems on XB's are very simple and basic. first thing i would do is lift bike to get front wheel off ground and slowly spin it thru its travel. is pad drag consistent for an entire revolution or comes and goes? comes and goes usually means something bent or you actually did hurt something. if it is consistent what i would do is flush and refill the master cylinder/caliper with DOT-4 fluid and give ride it a few miles, see what you have. do you know how to properly do this?

 

[Willie P]

It is a consistent level of drag through the entire revolution. Yes, I do know how to properly bleed and flush to avoid air bubbles.

I must ask however; why would flushing the system help reduce brake drag?

thanks!! -w.

 

[Rhino1]

Some brake pads are just thicker and cause this drag. If you rode for 100 miles, and the rotor wasn't excessively hot (or the brake fluid boiling), you're probably ok.

 

[anrkizm95]

did you torque the axle to specs?

 

[user_deleted]

willie: did you replace your brake pads? rhino seems to think you did and if so he's correct in that some pads thicker than stock, take awhile to wear in. what i meant by flushing and bleeding is the factory fill DOT-3 fluid has affinity for moisture which inevitably leads to dirty fluid and air bubbles. if you haven't resolved this issue yet i'd clean out m/cylinder reservoir, fill with fresh DOT-4, bleed, top off and see what you have. all disc pads drag a bit when lever/pedal pressure released. you didn't change levers and mess up free-play between lever and master cylinder plunger did you? just wondering.

 

[Willie P]

no, I did not change brake pads. they are the original pads. the bike has 7000 miles on it and I am the original owner.

Let me provide an additional piece of info that I may have originally omitted: After putting the wheel back on the bike, tightening the axle and pinch bolts, I then lowered the bike off the jack and rolled it in the garage. I THEN grabbed a handful of front brake lever to stop the bike from rolling in the garage and I had NO BRAKE at all - lever went all the way to the grip.

i then "pumped" the brake by hand to rebuild pressure and got a solid lever. I then let the bike set overnight and went for a ride in the morning. I did not notice at the start of the ride (While pushing from my garage any excessive drag - but then again, I was not really paying attention at the time). it was when I got home and moved it that I heard the noise coming from the front wheel that sounded like excessive drag.

this is when I jacked the bike back up, spun the wheel to find that the wheel would only spin with assistance from my hand. ie - it would not freely spin.

 

[user_deleted]

willie: that's normal. what happened was that during your caliper and wheel removal the caliper pistons got forced back into their bores sending excess fluid up into the master cylinder reservoir. you reinstalled wheel and first time you pulled brake lever it went to grip. multiple pumps pushed the pistons back out of their bores and restored solid brake lever. as i mentioned before i would still remove m/cyl. reservoir fluid, swab out, replace with fresh dot-4, pump up, bleed, and repeat the bleed a few times. i can guarantee you'll not only see brown fluid coming out during bleed but some tiny air bubbles. only takes 15 minutes to do it right and worth the time and fluid. all pads drag a tad but only you can tell by spinning wheel if it is slight to moderate drag as opposed to borderline brake lock. hope that helps.

 

[Rhino1]

^^Good suggestion.

 

[Willie P]

okay; so I went to Pep Boyz and got a Mitty Vac (not sure if I'll use it or bleed the brakes purely by gravity - we'll see).

however, all they had was DOT 3 brake fluid or DOT 3&4 brake fluid (DOT 3&4 brake fluid has a minimum boiling point of 311degF whereas DOT 3 is like 280degF min boiling point). I went ahead and bought the DOT 3&4.

question is: is DOT 3&4 safe?? the manual recommends DOT 4 ONLY. also lunaticfringe, you seem to infer that OEM is DOT 3, yet the Buell manual repeatedly says DOT 4 only - why then would they spec DOT 3 from the factory????

PepB also had DOT 5. they did not carry any straight out DOT 4 - in fact the salesman told me I'd have a hard time finding DOT 4.

wp

 

[Willie P]

also as an update to the diagnosis: tonight I went an opened the top cap on the front master cylinder and there was brake fluid pooled-up on the outer face of the rubber gasket (between the rubber gasket and the plastic protector piece that goes over it - both are fitted under the metal top cap).

per lunaticfringe; I must have pushed a hell of a lot of pressure up into the master cylinder for the fluid to push around the rubber seal to the outside.

does this sound to be in-line with what y'all are thinking happened?

also, at the end of the day - i'm hoping a flush of the brake system and proper bleed will restore my brakes to normal. wp

 

[user_deleted]

dot-5 is silicone-based fluid. do not use it. it is not compatible with any other non-silicone based fluids. dot 3&4 pretty much the same other than 4 is a slight improvement over 3....less affinity for moisture. either works fine though i prefer 4 when i can find it. your fluid pooled up as you described because you failed to remove some of the reservoir fluid and reinstall cap prior to removing wheel and retracting caliper pistons into their respective bores. you didn't hurt anything. just clean everything up and do suggested bleed.

 

[Willie P]

UPDATE:

first, thanks to all who posted. I thought the advice was sensible and straightforward. Thanks again!

Second, here's the update:

+I flushed the entire system following procedures viewed on YouTube, read in various manuals and from prior experience doing some of my cars. I actually flushed an half of a bottle of DOT 3&4 through the system. NO bubbles, strong lever feel. (FWIW - the initial stuff that came out - wow! looked like Budweiser!). I also used a Mity-Vac for the flush to pull out as much as possible.

+for the bleed/fine tune - I actually did it the old fashion way of using gravity, a catch-can and pumping/releasing to get NO AIR BUBBLES and a solid lever feel.

+I also checked the front axle torque to make sure I had it right - I did (40lbs/ft).

+after doing all of the above; I spun the front wheel (while jacked up): with a solid palm of hand on the tire and a "good spin" I got exactly one revolution. over and over.

+took the bike out, rode around the 'hood a few times, did a few hard stops. all was fine with the brakes/stopped well.

+came back, jacked bike up - still only one revolution on a "solid spin"

+bled brakes again. went out rode bike, hard stops, etc

+came back, jacked bike up - still only one revolution on a solid spin.

I basically rode the bike this way for 100 miles last weekend (before the flush/bleed). am I being to anal about this brake drag issue? is only one revolution on a spin of the wheel okay?

 

[xtreme6669]

Sounds normal but that depends on how hard you are spinning it...

 

[Loki]

Buells dont like to spin to freely. So it sounds normal.

 

[user_deleted]

willie: as extreme and loki said. one complete revolution with a hand spin is about normal. and when you're doing that you'll find that if you grab the wheel assy. at 12 and 6 o'clock, twist the assy. or rock it and then spin it, it will spin a bit more freely. you just pushed the pistons back in their respective bores a tad when you did that. another good test is to take bike out for 10 mile ride or so, brake moderately a few times, ride a mile or 2 and coast to a stop. feel rotor...it should be slightly warm but not hot. this is normal.