Triumphrat

aebbern · 03-10-2008

My original discs were worn to below the service limit, so I replaced them with new ones from EBC. After installing them, I noticed an obvious pulsing through the front brake lever. At very slow speeds I could visibly see the brake lever moving back and forth as the brakes were genlty applied.

Put the bike up on its stand and measured the discs with a dial caliper... sure enough they were warped. So I pulled both discs in preparation to send them back, upon which I found a small amount of hardened loctite on the mating surface of the rotor carrier.

I thought I was being so smart using just a bit of loctite on each disc bolt when I installed them, but some of it weeped in between the disc and the carrier, setting up and causing the disc to not sit perfectly flush on the carrier.

Cleaned all the dried loctite up, reinstalled the discs and no more brake pulsing. Lesson learned - if the service manual does not call for loctite on a specific bolt, there may be a good reason for that (and go easy on the loctite when you do need it).

Cheers,
Andy

miker · 03-11-2008

Aebbern, firstly, welcome!

My brother had a similar problem to you, except on his Custom Softail. The front wheel had been hit side on in a fall and unbeknowns to us had mounting flange for the rotor bent by about 2mm. This meant that the brand new rotor went on without a problem, but showed up as a pulse from the get go. A lot of fiddling around with hammers and a swing lathe we managed to get the dial out guage down to a couple of thou and it's as good as new. Took some figuring though, and another lesson that all is not always as it seems!

Mick