Had an interesting little project with rear brakes today. Not a huge improvement but a real and noticeable improvement nonetheless.
Saw a friend for breakfast this morning that hadn't seen for a couple years. He builds trikes. He had eight rear calipers and brackets in the back his truck left over from trike upgrades. Hmmm, that's got to allow for some kind of a weekend project.
Took them all with me. Bored and honed the mount arm center to 1.002" to slide over the 1" axle on the 02-07 bikes. Hit a buddy's machine shop long enough to cut some spacer stock that is the right width to make up the stack between the caliper bracket and the wheel. This is necessary because the 08 and newer caliper is narrower where the axle goes through than is the earlier caliper and Harley doesn't make a spacer this width for the 1" axle.
Happened to have a couple old 11.8" rotors just laying around and, voila, with the machine work and new spacer it's a bolt on upgrade for the earlier bikes to the new Brembo caliper and its bigger 11.8" brakes. Stock brake line bolts up. Really is an easy swap with the center hole honed to the right size and the one-off spacer cut for the project.
All observer bias admitted and nothwithstanding here's what I noticed for the difference: There is better feedback through the pedal and the panic stopping is better. That's as one would expect with bigger brakes. I just wasn't sure if I'd notice the difference or not. You do. It's not dramatic; but it is real and noticeable.
While I didn't measure the total rear-wheel-only stopping distance I did measure the comparison. After four passes for practice to gain the feel on each and a pause to let the pads cool the bigger brakes in a rear-wheel-only braking from 60mph stopped 12-13 feet shorter in three consecutive passes. That was with a good set of the Lyndall Z pads in both calipers. A rider with a bigger pair of stones than my own might have done a little better....
I didn't do the same comparison using front and rear brakes together. Was just comparing rear wheel only.. But it's still better and it is enough of a difference that it just might keep a bike from running in to something. That made the afternoon worthwhile and the exercise worth repeating.
The pic below is the newer caliper on my old 2000 Road Glide. I know, 2000 doesn't have the 1" axle. My old Road Glide got converted to the newer swingarm and 1" axle a long time ago. So it's the same in the rear as the 02 to 07 bikes. Going to do the same change to my Road King as soon as I can get one of the calipers and brackets turned red.
Still have six more calipers and brackets here. If anyone else is interested let me know. I can machine a few more spacers and cut the calipers brackets to size for anyone else that wants to do the deed.
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Topic: Cheap Brembo brake upgrade for the 2002-2007 touring bikes (Read 3862 times)