Hey, I'm having problems with my front brakes on my 250x. Last night a buddy and i were replacing bearins in the front wheels and when he put the puller on the left side hub, he made the mistake of not taking off the brake caliper.... as you can imagine the disk didnt enjoy that and give into the pressures of the puller... he realized what he had done to late and when he pulled the hub and disk off the disk was bent to hell right where the caliper had been. we hammered it as straight as possible, and it is quite straight, just enough to make the damn the drag when it gets to that bend. I thought maybe releasing some pressure out of the brake system would help..... and thats where my problem is, when i put the front tires back on and rode it i had no front brakes at all!! i dont think adding any more fluid to the master cylinder would do much of anything, and im not much of a brake guy, the wear indicator says they arent worn out yet. does someone please know what could possibly be the problem? thanks a bunch guys and gals!

BigDogX

 

Well first of all you don't need a puller to get the hub off a 250x. IF you have the brake disc flat with no bends make sure the fluid is full, and bleed them. Pump the lever 10 times and hold it in. Turn the screw on the caliper to let air out then quickly turn it back.

 

Hey

you can hammer a rim straight
you can hammer the handlebars straight

but really tough to get brake rotor hammered straight "enough"

i would replace the rotor if it is at all warped and bleed the whole system with the right amount of brake fluid. I can ride with broke plastic,bent (slightly) rims, handlebars,levers but would never mess around riding with sub-par brakes.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img]

 

If you have bent your rotor you will have to replace it. No amount of hammering will ever get it true again. The brake system works on very small tolerances. (Thousandths of an inch) If you turn your wheel and it drags (even a little) it is at the same time pushing the piston back into the caliper. Then when you need your brakes , much of the travel of the brake lever will be used up just getting the pads back up against the rotor. This could explain why you have no front brakes in addition to the possibility that air got in the system when you tried to relieve the pressure. Bite the bullet and replace the rotor and chalk it up to experience! Make sure to rebleed the system after installing everything.
Brakes are too important to skimp on, and I bet you dont know anyone that ever said "I wish my brakes DIDN'T work"
Good luck !

 

well see after the front bearings never being replaced on a 87 model things start to seize up, so yes i did need a puller to get my hub off, thanks. i pumped the brake lever many times but no pressure built up.... what <u>screw</u> might you be talking about on the caliper? i know there is a bleeding nipple on top of them. does anyone have any idea how much a rotor costs? thanks!

BigDog

 

Sorry dude you need a new rotor, just that simple, what's happening is as the wiggle in the rotor gets to the caliper it's pushing fluid back into the master cylinder, now theoretically you could 'pump' your front brakes to get them working, except that you'd have to 'pump' the lever on the straight section of the rotor, and hold the lever down each time the wiggle section went around, at about the third pump you might start getting braking action.

In short get a new rotor, bleed the brakes, and there just won't be any trouble.