I just purchased this ATV and it seems to be a great machine. Runs great and seems to have quite a bit of power. The rear brakes seem to not have much stopping power though and I am not exactly sure how to adjust them. I was wondering if anyone had a pdf of the repair manual for this ATV they would be willing to share. I have searched online and can't find one that isn't over $100. Otherwise is there another year that is very similar that I could use as a reference?

Thanks!

 

If the ATV has rear drum brakes you should see two butterfly wing nuts by the inside rear wheel. Turn those clockwise to adjust the rear brake. Ones for the foot brake and the other is for the hand.

Never mind , looks like you have disc rear brakes, so to adjust them there going to have to be bleed of any air in the brake lines. http://www.quadcorral.com/atvspecs/d...995-1998).html

Here's a vid on how to do it. Its a Polaris but a bleed job is a bleed job.

 

AC's rear brake setup is a little different than most. The 454 has a hydraulic brake caliper that works off of the hydraulic hand brake(for 4 wheel braking), but then it also has a mechanical foot brake with a totally separate set of pads(for only rear braking). There are a total of 4 brake pads and two calipers on the rear disc.The mechanical brake is what the foot brake operates so you wont need to do any bleeding since this is all on the mechanical side of the brake. Check the pads first, then see if you feel resistance on the foot pedal pretty soon in its travel. If it has strong resistance then adjustment wont help. If it goes way down before you feel resistance then, you can adjust it by loosening the jam nuts on the cable at the rear caliper, and adjusting them as needed to put slack in or take slack out of the cable. I will say that my father in law's 300 Arctic Cat had the same brake setup and the hand brake worked great, but the foot brake wasnt very strong even though the pads were good and it was adjusted correctly. I cant compare my 300 AC because my foot brake wasnt working when I bought it, and I havent gotten around to fixing it yet. Regardless, if your hand brake is working good, then you wont need to mess with bleeding the hydraulic caliper as that wont help the foot brake.

Hope this helps!

 

Thanks for the replies, sorry for taking so long to respond. The ATV does have 2 rear brakes, one that works off the hand lever and one on the foot brake. It is the foot brake one that I am having issues with. I haven't messed with it much but now it seems to be squeaking as well. Is it really necessary to even have this brake or can it just be eliminated since the hand brake works well? I am only using the ATV to do work around my small farm, not climbing mountains or anything!

Thoughts?

 

It wont hurt anything at all to get rid of it. I really like having a working foot brake, but it really isnt that important as long as you have a good hand brake. My Grizzly has a crappy drum brake setup in the back and the only thing I use it for is a parking brake since its about worthless for stopping the thing. It has really good front brakes though so it doesnt bother me too bad. I need to work on the foot brake on my Arctic Cat though. Id like to have it working since it is a disc brake setup which should work decent once they are fixed.

Just be sure the reason for the squeaking isnt something else. My Grizzly front brakes got to where they would squeal for no reason. Once I checked it out I realized it was because the wheel bearings had gotten worn and were letting the wheel/rotors lean, causing the brakes to rub in a funny way.