Have you had delamination?

I have checked my rear brake for delamination, and found that it was in good shape. Woo Hoo!! I was just curious how many have had the issue with delamination.

 

My doctor has advised against it

 

One of my customers has an XJ550 that we hadn't worked on before, one of his rear shoes delaminated last week and locked up the rear wheel.

 

I did, two for two on my XJs which is why I wrote the initial post: http://xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=15874.html if you read the seven pages of replies you'll find that a lot of other folks have too.

It happens often enough that we need to warn people about it.

 

When it comes to locking up HALF of your stability (potentially while in a high speed turn such as on a highway) I think it should absolutely be passed on to new riders.

I personally did not experience any, however I chose to replace my brakes anyway under the basis of 'better safe than sorry'.

 

This is one of the first things for me to do when I get reunited with my bike.

 

Just replaced mine....they were original (or at least oem, because they had the "Yamaha Tuning Fork" logo embossed on them)...no delamination, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

 

Before I even picked my 550 up to bring her home I saw Fitz's delam post. First thing I did was pull the rear wheel to check the shoes. You guessed it, both shoes were no longer attached to their backing plates.

 

No delamination, but then the feeling of security I get from knowing I have fresh brakes (I do the brakes on ANY bike I buy before riding it) is worth a hell of a lot more to me than an afternoon of work and a few bucks for the parts.

 

I can't imagine how tense I would feel if after wicking the throttle and my engine got up to 18PSI of boost if I had to worry about the rear end locking up. We aren't talking about a situation where fast fingers on the clutch lever is going to save you, no, we're talking about a full, complete and very possibly, deadly mechanical locking of the rear wheel....all for want of an hour and 35 dollars? Don't take the chance.....as Ron mentioned, one of his customer's bikes delam'ed last week so just because they looked okay, doesn't mean they will stay okay. Mine looked perfect when I took my bike apart last year....right before I replaced them!

jeff

 

Out of all the bikes I have/ have had, only ever found ONE set of shoes that had any delamination, but that's probably just dumb luck on my end...

Dave

 

I noticed, in this thread, that the delamination problem SEEMS to only affect the XJ 550. Has anyone with a bigger XJ been the victim of delamination? Statistically, it appears to be rare, it MAY only be that the 550 suffers from this due to a manufacturing flaw in the brake shoes; If the brake shoes used on the 550 are the same ones used on the other XJ's the this is all moot. I cannot claim to be an expert on this issue, I'll leave that to Big Fitz; all I know is what I have experienced with the 3 XJ's that I have owned as well as all the other bikes that I have owned that used drum brakes, and that was no delamination. BUT BY ALL MEANS PLEASE CHECK THE REAR DRUM BRAKE FOR DELAMINATION ON ALL NEWLY ACQUIRED 25+ YEAR OLD BIKES.

 

Member *Twistedframe* , who sold me the touring stuff for my 750 Seca, had sudden delamination that luckily happened in his driveway.

I was hoping to find a pattern of outside storage, or high humidity to explain why the adhesive would fail for some, and hold for others,

It could also be a bad "batch" of glue - maybe we'll never know.

 

The delam that I had was on an 81 xj650.

dave

 

It's not just 550s at all, read the responses to my thread.

My very first experience with delam was on my third ex-wife's '87 Honda Civic (CAR) and it flat locked one rear wheel at about 75mph.

Took me a bit to figure out what actually happened and when I pulled the drum the other lining fell out. The shoes on the other side of the car had started to peel away but just hadn't failed yet. 1980s Jap brakes, and it had sat on the used car lot for an indeterminate length of time.

I discovered it on my '83 Seca and wrote the article; then pulled my '81 apart and found them starting too. I bought an XS400 rear wheel off eBay (for the rear brake plate, want an XS400 wheel?) and its shoes were delaminating too.

Maybe us 550 owners are less reluctant to actually pull the wheel and check; what with it being so easy, chain drive and all?

 

Thanks for the response, I just wanted to hear from other than 550 owners. So now we know that it an issue best to keep an eye on.

 

I saw the posts about the declamation problem and decide not to take any chances and changed the brakes before it could happen. Oh, the bike had sat appx. 10 years in some dudes garage, so better safe than very sorry.

Massimo