brake squeal back after 30 miles w/ new pads...

Grrrrrrrrr.

Installed new Carbone Lorraine A3 pads on Monday with my old rotors. The old rotors were not badly worn or grooved and within spec on thickness. My old brake setup didn't exhibit any pulsing, just a bad squeal under light to moderate application, and pad wear close to the indicators with a bit of grabbiness. I used the brake lube (not the red "brake quiet" type stuff, the permatex brake lube, it's very sticky black lube) on the pad backs, a pretty thin coat since the instructions said sparingly.

It was fine until today and I've put about 30 miles of commuting and riding around town, then in heavy trafic this morning it started lightly squealing under very light braking. By the time I got home tonight, it was about as bad as usual, just w/o the grabbiness. The feel is still very solid and smooth.

Thoughts? I think in another thread Ted said he'd had some temporary luck with the brake quiet stuff but didn't get relief until he replaced the rotors w/ EBCs. I'm not sure this is the same problem though, the common complaint is pulsing and I don't have that, just squealing, and I think most of the complainers had K75S bikes, I have a K75T. I'll be replacing another hose this winter so I'll have the brake system partially apart anyway at that point.

My plan is to try the brake quiet this winter and see what happens, then if that doesn't help I'll either live with it as long as there's no pulsing, or I'll look into some EBC rotors. But I figured I'd ask for sympathy or experiences from the rest of you lot...

brake squeal!

barooo, I've got a 95 K75 and it squeals like my granddaughter at a Jonas Brothers Concert. It always has, since about 100 yards away from the dealer.
I really believe that it was designed that way. The reason is so that when you pull up along side a Harley at the stop light the squealing is a high enough pitch that they can hear it over the potato-potato-potato noise, then they know that you are there.

I’ve tried everything to stop the noise except throw big dollars at it. Good Luck.

BeachGuy
95 K75

BP no longer stands for British Petroleum it stands for “Beach Polluters”

Q

Not sure if this will help your problem or not, but back when I was selling Mercedes, we would often have people come in with squeeling brakes. I usually would take their car for a drive, and apply the brakes hard 2-3 times and presto!
Quiet brakes.

I found that usually it was caused by people who braked very gently, and caused their pads to glaze. A couple of hard stops and it would go away.

Try braking with a little more vigor, and see if that doesn't cure your problem.

460

Yeah

460Jetboat said:

Not sure if this will help your problem or not, but back when I was selling Mercedes, we would often have people come in with squeeling brakes. I usually would take their car for a drive, and apply the brakes hard 2-3 times and presto!
Quiet brakes.

I found that usually it was caused by people who braked very gently, and caused their pads to glaze. A couple of hard stops and it would go away.

Try braking with a little more vigor, and see if that doesn't cure your problem.

460

Click to expand...

That's definitely part of it. I commute in Chicago, so there's a lot of stop-and-go. When you're creeping along at 5 mph it's hard to brake w/ vigor, especially if you're 2-up and trying to ride smoothly. The squeal is at its worst when I'm braking softly and not really noticeable when stopping from 30-40 mph, except maybe at the very end when I let up.

Could they glaze in 30 miles? Brand new sintered pads. I definitely intend to do some harder stops when I can, I'm doing a 500 mile (one way) trip next weekend so I should get to put them through their paces then.

On my k100RS, I had the same issue. I seem to remember that the best I ever got was by going to a Ferodo pad that apparently had more carbon or something in the mix. They put out a ton of dust, but I seem to recall I felt it was worth it. Same issue, solid rotor carriers, essentially same model brake calipers, etc. Fine with a lot of pressure, but squealed like a stuck pig in a parking lot with 'babes' looking on....

95 K75RT with quiet brakes

Reading the various feedback about squealing or not, it reinforces the idea that personal riding habits are a large contributor. Sort of like "who gets what type of mileage out of what tire." It all depends.
Anyway, I've put about 11,000 miles on my 1995 K75RT during the 10 months I have owned it and have not had any brake squeal. The front pads were replaced 20,000 miles ago by the PO (OEM pads I think) and I replaced the rear pads 1,000 miles ago with the Carbone Lorraine pads. Rotors are OEM. Still no squeal with either set of pads. Maybe I am lucky........ or just hard of hearing.

I've had various BMWs over the past 20yrs. ALL of them had noisy brakes!
Maybe it's the rider...maybe it's the brand!
Anyways, brakes are for the timid.

this might help.

http://www.ebcbrakes.com/troubleshooting.shtml

loud brakes save lives.........................

gawga_boy said:

this might help.

http://www.ebcbrakes.com/troubleshooting.shtml

Click to expand...

Great artical, thanks for posting.

BeachGuy