Better to be safe ..

Hi all,

So, hobbled out to the GPz550 this arvo (banged knee hard on the
garage door edge the other day, still not right (knee not door) <g>)
and took the rear brake caliper off (dragging brake).

I stripped it down in the vice and although the pads still probably
had quite a bit of life in them, a fairly light prod had the friction
material off the backing plate. :-(

However, I popped the piston out (rubber tip on air gun) and it's all
in pretty good nick in there. ;-)

The local shop got my new (genuine) front brake lever in and had some
new pads in stock [1].

Only goes to show how you really do need to check this sort of stuff.

All the best ..

T i m


[1] EBC FA85's (organic). Non sintered were suggested for the rear,
does that sound right?

 

Non-HH, just normal organics are fine in the rear. Up front you
definitely need HH or other sintered pads as the GPZ brake set up is
designed around them.

 

Brilliant, thanks Lozzo.

Ok, well I'll probably cross that bridge when I come to it.

I may have been a bit premature re the condition of the rear caliper.
Well, the caliper is actually pretty good but the piston has quite a
few pits round the top (near where the main seal could sit). I note
you can get stainless pistons for about 30 quid (delivered) but that
starts to push the price of this particular project up and I don't
know about the rest of it yet.

And you can't guarantee the condition of a spare caliper on eBay?

All the best ..

T i m

 

No... but look for someone with good feedback, and take a chance. You'll
almost certainly get a more accurate description than you would buying
mail-order from a breaker.

It's also worth working out which other (possibly less popular) models
share the same caliper.

 

I guess unless either strip and inspect every caliper neither can
promise anything can they?

The problem is I don't really want to risk any money on this project.
I don't mind spending a bit on it once I know:

1) All the deal-breaker bits are working ok (engine / gearbox / forks
etc)

2) I like riding the thing.

So, for 30 quid delivered I can get brand new stainless steel piston
and seals for the existing caliper that I know is fine, but it's
another 30 quid. Then I strip the rear master cylinder / front
calipers and find I need another 100 quid's worth of bits and I'm now
looking at the same money as for something possibly better / cleaner /
sorted on eBay (am I?).

I might just lube the piston up (red grease), put it all together and
if it doesn't leak then leave it like that till I've done points 1 and
2 above.

All the best ..

T i m

 

Ok, well today I pulled, stripped, cleaned, lubed and re-assembled the
front calipers and noted they had pads that looked like these:

http://tinyurl.com/6qxpu7

which I think is also these.

http://www.bikebandit.com/product/10526

They seemed in fair nick and unlike the rears have little lugs keeping
the frictionable material in place, should they become delaminated
from the back plate (like the rears were).

One piston has a couple of tiny rust spots so I'll keep that in mind
if / when I decide to keep it.

If it's not raining tomorrow I'll pop it all back together, bleed it
through and see what they feel like.

One of the rear master cylinder seals was shot and a quote for genuine
replacement (complete piston) was about 30 quid. You can buy an
aftermarket kit (piston plus clip and boot) for about the same
delivered (but my existing boots are ok ..)?

I've also removed a few (3) unused brackets from the frame (engine
bars or lower fairing possibly) and got the air box > carb rubbers
softened up and back on (a couple of missing spring clips on order).

I just need to give the chain and sprockets a good clean up (surface
rust) and lube (it's an O ring chain I believe) and check over the
final bits.

Looking good .. ;-)

All the best ..

T i m

p.s. I noticed there seemed to be quite a bit of play in the gearshift
and much of it seems to emanate from where the gear selector shaft
comes out though the casing. If I decide to keep the beast, can you
get that sort of thing re-bushed would you know?

 

I wonder if they do them for a RG125?

 

Do you need some then?

All the best ..

T i m

 

Could do with some good pads to go with my new disk. The EBC greens seem
to be shite compared with my old pads.

 

EBC greens /are/ shite. I guess they'd be fine for low-speed,
low-weight stuff (like ... a pushbike, I'd suggest), but I stuck a set
in the RF900 'cos they were cheap and it SLAGIATT. No problems for a
couple of days, but when on a uk.r.m. rideout, wanting to get back to
the front of the pack and hoisting past nearly everybody at 140+ and
then needing to brake for a ~60mph corner, they set in a massive front
end vibration (and made some hoorendous noise) without inducing a
massive amount of retardation.

I'll give them this - they raised my cornering speed envelope by 50%
in an instant (get off the brakes, hang off like a hanging-off monkey,
determine to die on the gas, not on the brakes) and simultaneously
rasied the height of the pucker ridge on the seat by 150%.

There was SFA left in them for the following 30mph corner, either.
EBC greens are utter shite - prolly made from shite, actually, just
compressed a bit and dried into the shape of a brake pad. They wear
like ****, too - perhaps this is a good thing.

 

I got this vibration the other day, in the rain.. plus a different type
of vibration that went away with some heavy braking. Compared to a lot
of bikes, my scoot is low weight, low speed. This is worrying.. but I
think I'll have a go at wearing the 'greens' out before I stick a better
set in there.

Nobody got a decent set of front pads for a RG125 going free / cheap
have they ? (FA110)