front brakes

between chacal's and rickomatic's writeups, the manual and 18 million posts about carbs I pulled that one off swimmingly but brakes are another story...

I already know I want to install braided steel cables and my rear drum is past prime.. for the fronts i have some life left in the discs, but i figured i might as well...

but i don't even know how to tell if the rotors are ok or not... and if the rotors are ok then replacing them (or drilling holes) is mostly for looks right?

 

The Holes are for heat-dissipation AFAIK.

If these are OEM rotors, use a caliper or thickness gauge to determine what's left on them. Chacal's parts list (service manual, etc.) has the correct minimum thickness. Use a good-quality instrument if your rotors are low, otherwise a wrong measurement might be a bad thing.

For aftermarket ones, you'll have to look up the minimum thickness and compare vs your readings.

The rest... well, I'm learning, too. I'm about to ask a front brake question myself.

 

Correct. The rotors are stainless steel and not really "turnable." They have a minimum thickness and a runout spec; as long as they're not out of spec or deeply scored, they should be fine.

Drilling and/or slotting is to give the gasses that build up between the surface of the rotor and the pads during hard braking a place to go without having to get all the way to the edge of the pad to escape. Drilling WILL help alleviate fading; it's why I had my stock rotor drilled, and it worked. That being said, your dual-disc bike probably won't ever have any sort of fading issue with properly rebuilt stock brakes.

But drilled rotors do look cool.

 

Also, use a piece of plate glass to lay the caliper on to check for warpage.


EDIT: Oh yeah, rotor not caliper. duh. :roll:

 

Hey tsk, did you mean rotors? :roll: :lol:
natedog, I'm pretty sure that the rotors on your bike can be interchanged with rotors from a Radian and they are slotted and are really nice, look:

 

OOPS, edited post to read correctly

 

@fitz - for properly rebuilt you mean the master cylinder, cables & pads right?

@Timmay, looks like you & I are at the same spot ;p

@fitz & X - they do look cool but I'm still at the 'must do' phase versus would be nice but costs money phase... that might change real soon but still

 

Understand about the "must do", but when you are ready check out the price of a good set of used as compared to having you originals drilled and refinished.
Bought mine off eBay last July for pretty cheap.

 

By "properly rebuilt," I mean master cylinder AND calipers rebuilt, new brake LINES, new pads (and rear shoes.)