Poor rear brake after removing ABS

[jnrugg]

After removing the ABS unit from my 02 1150RT (perhaps being a bit hasty) the front brakes are fabulous.
However, the rear brakes are worse than before.
Never great even with ABS they won't hold the bike on a small hill unless I am almost standing on the pedal.
It does have stainless steel lines and have bled it several times, I will try again when I pull it out for the summer just in case.
Looking for suggestions in case it's not that.
Though not the primary brake I do use it for hill holding and the GPS has brought me to sketchy roads for an RT.
The rear brake being instrumental in getting me out of it.
I have searched the forums and nothing pops up.
Would going to a non-ABS, 13mm, master cylinder make a difference?
There are a few on e-bay.

TIA!!!

 

[zekeq]

Ok, don’t laugh, I made this mistake myself when bleeding the rears the first time; any chance you put the new fluid in on top of the rubber gasket/baffle that fits inside the rear reservoir cup, instead of removing the gasket/baffle and filling the cup directly?

 

[rogerc60]

Contaminated brake pads? Caliper piston hanging up? Brake pads hanging up? How did you run the rear lines? Some people use the hard lines and just connected them together where the iABS module used to be. In that case it can be really hard to get all the air out of the line. I did away with the hard lines and connected a single braided hose between the master cylinder and the caliper.

The rear brake on my 2003 was actually too strong after the absectomy. I switched to organic brake pads.

 

[jnrugg]

I am not sure about having the gasket in place, I will take it out next time.
Brake pads are new and nothing seems to be binding in the caliper.
I can spin the rear wheel and the brake doesn't rub and does stop the wheel.
I bought a kit from Motorworks which has the splitter for the front, braided line for the back.
The ABS hard lines are gone.
There was already a braided line for the back but the one in the kit is a bit longer and it goes right to the master cylinder.

 

[pauls1150]

Roger brings up two good points:
If a pad (or both) are contaminated, meaning ANY kind of material invasion, they will lose quite a bit of their grabbing ability. With ABS in place, this might not be noticed, especially considering the linking of the brakes (force applied by the rider is divided at the controller).
If a piston inside the caliper is not moving properly, you'd get exactly the same effect; maybe there is a blockage inside the caliper or a seal is binding.
You mention the pads are new ... brand and p/n? The EBC FA363HH seems to be favored; I'll assume you compared the shape and thickness of the new pads to the old ones. Sometimes they need a bit of "break-in" to get full contact against the rotor.
Typically there will be just a little bit of drag on the rotor when everything is good.

 

[jnrugg]

Thanks for taking the time to answer.
The pads are Carbone Lorraine Brake Pads 2900RX3 from Beemer Boneyard.
Best way to check for binding?

 

[pauls1150]

Shine a flashlight parallel to the rotor, so you can see if there is adequate movement.

Addendum: And not just the pads, the caliper should move a little too, since it's on pins.

 

[jnrugg]

I finally got back to this.
I did 2 things, 1 was to pump the brake and wedge the pedal down overnight to give any bubbles a chance to escape.
2 was to raise the pedal with the adjuster.
I think #2 did the trick, the brake is now usable without having to stand on it.
This is something I should have done a long time ago, even with ABS it seemed to take a lot of travel.
I think the ABS sort of masked that.

Thanks for all the suggestions!