Hi all,
I've just bought a brand new 2000 Arctic 500 4X4. I like it a lot and it certainly looks to have all the power I want. Now here's my problem. The front brakes squeal constantly. They only let up when I use the brakes. This is, at minimum, annoying and, at worst, cutting down on my ability to see wildlife on my land. Does any one have any ideas on how to fix this? Does anyone have any ideas on aftermarket pads that might fix the problem?

BTD

 

[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]First off, welcome to the Arctic cat world.

Now on to the subject at hand. You must first make sure that you burnish the brake rotors. Do this by accelerating up to about 15 mph then applying the brakes, both front and rear very hard. Do this several times. This should help with the squeaking. If it doesn't correct it you can remove the pads and put duct tape on the back side of the pad between the puck and the pad. This acts as an insulator and helps eliminate the vibrations that cause the sound.

Good luck and enjoy your new Cat and again Welcome [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

Hi!, I own a 1999 500 and my son has a 2000 500 auto and we never had that problem with the frount brakes however the back brakes did sqeek abit when thay were new. I now have a little over 5500 miles on my bike and my son has some where close to 2000. We have gone thru several sets of brake pads, not hard to install just costley and annoying. You might want to take them apart ang clean them up maybe try a differnt set just make shure to barnish them after installation.
scotto

 

Hey and welcome to the pride.

I had the same problem with my 500 manual and 400. Here are some things I learned with cat brakes. They wear very quickly in the mud. I got 250 miles out of the first set. I replaced them with EBC brakes available from rocky mountain atv($22 vs. $33 at the dealer for factory pads). Work great. Burnish them just like the factory pads. The rear foot brake has been a source of head ache for me lately. The pads in there are not anchored into the caliper so they will float and flop around which is causing some noise now. I haven't decided on replacing them or removing the whole assemble and getting rid of a few pounds and a future head ache. They just flop over and rub when you corner or travel at a slow speed. Minehunter's suggestion about duct taped worked great on my cats. Just make sure to trim the tape well to prevent binding. You shouldn't have this problem on your 01 cat but I did with the old style white brake master cylinder, a slow leak that made the brakes very spongy. The black metal one on my 400 works great. I can lock all the wheels up and slide easily. The brakes have really been the only area where I've had to really work on the cats and fine tune. But sometimes it is half the fun of owning a machine. I hope this helps some. Good luck!

Dakota R/T

 

dakotart, thanks for the word on the brake repair. I posted that on the earlier forum about sqeaking brakes, but i never heard if it worked for anyone. I guess it did.

As for the brakes. There's a guy on the Polaris forum who makes brake pads out of some sort of brass alloy. They supposedly last about 10 times longer than the standard pads. They don't stop as well as regular pads, but they will stop you. I wonder if he could be induced into making them for the Cat.

I don't do a lot of mud riding and have over 3000 miles on my brakes so far. The pads still have about .095 thickness left on the front and .105 on the rear. If you don't ride a lot of mountains, the brass pads could be the way to go if you an get them.

 

I've honestly used the foot brake twice and when I finially decided to remove the entire assembaly they were almost worn down competely. I'm not the only one that has removed the foot brake completely either, Johnny Stout's did too. I never use the foot brake and if I did I think I would be safter just to let it keep rolling with out the brake cause the foot brake is pathetic. It actually goes faster when I press the foot brake than when I don't (sarcastically).

 

Yeah the foot brake is pathetic. A three inche lever on a 6 rotor with like 3 square inches of braking surface provides no stopping power for a 1000 pound quad with rider. I'll replace them only because my parents ride them and I just know as soon as I get rid of them they will wreck or something and come back home saying if only I had that foot brake! I was shocked at how fast the mud eats those pads. We had a super wet winter that was very mild so it offered some great oppertunity with the new quads. The price of fun!

 

Boner, I also removed the intire foot brake assembley. like dakotart said, thay flop arownd to much and are almost inpossible to keep ajusted I even lost a the pads a few times before I decided to remove the whole darn thing. The foot brake setup on the auto is much better.