So i decided to change my leavers out, wanted a set with bite adjustment, found some online, all good!
Fitted them, Clutch was fine, needed tweeking on the screw barrel but works great. The break however i noticed was very sharp, i just thought it was a good improvement, when out for a test ride, about 5 mins in.. JAMMED, went from 50mph in the outside lane of the North Circular (London) to zero in seconds, i doubt i could have done an emergency stop that fast.. no idea what had happened i waited for the police to come help me move over, i could not move the bike alone as it was jammed and as you know a Monster is not that light. about 10mins later they arrived and shut the NC down for me and by this time the brakes had become free. so we moved it over to the inside lane and got talking, The guy was a biker himself and said its either the seals being worn and jamming or there is so much heat the fluid is expanding and holding them on, given that they are coming loose after 10 mins or so i would say the latter. So i came off at the next exit (Ace Cafe) had a coffee, let them cool and then crawled home.
I took the cap off the front break reservoir and bleed the breaks as i did i noticed that the level was now sitting way above max, so i drained a third of the fluid out and noticed that it again felt as it did prior to me fitting the new leavers.. since this, its all been good..
Take my lack of know how and high levels of stupidity and learn from them.. its the only gift i seem to have for the world ;)
That could also have happened if the screw barrel/plunger adjuster was too far in.
yer, actually, that was my first thought, but when i looked it was as out as far as it would go..
Quote from: Runawaygeek on May 14, 2014, 03:24:29 AM
I took the cap off the front break reservoir and bleed the breaks as i did i noticed that the level was now sitting way above max, so i drained a third of the fluid out and noticed that it again felt as it did prior to me fitting the new leavers.. since this, its all been good..
Take my lack of know how and high levels of stupidity and learn from them.. its the only gift i seem to have for the world ;)
[laugh] thanks for the chuckle! Sounds to me like maybe if you didn't have extra room in your brake line system it was putting pressure on everything, including the lever and caliper pistons. The friction on the rotors would then heat up the fluid which would create more and more pressure. Usually when that happens though they don't jam the brakes harder than you've ever braked on your own though. That's just my experience though, and it's only happened to me with the rear brake.
You need 1 - 1.5 mm. free play at the lever. ChrisK is correct, an overfull reservoir could be the cause.
Did the exact same thing on my ST4 last week. I played with the adjustment screw on the brake lever for the better part of a day and couldn't get it dialed in to where it worked as well as the stock lever.
Went back to stock, but will probably try and get it to work again, in the near future
Brake locked @ 50 mph? How did you keep it up? ABS?
well, years of bike control at mountain biking came in to play i think, as soon as the front dipped i levelled the bias with the back brake and lent rather then steered the bike to the edge of the lane, but i dipped the clutch instantly, rather than last min like in an E-Stop, that way if i missed timed a stall could have caused the back wheel to slip and i would have gone ar*e over t*t.. haha, but i was just lucky i guess..