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After replacing my front tire and following Barrass Choppers method of making sure the wheel is centered in the forks (to keep the left brake from dragging), my brakes were pretty quiet. After a couple thousand miles of traveling 2 up and pulling the Bushtec, my passenger said innocently, "man, those bugs are loud". I never thought about it much but when I started thinking about what she was talking about I noticed what she meant.
Having lived in the south, those darn Cicadas are loud as heck. I realized that was the sound she was speaking of. Since I was coming down from 12000' in elevation on corners only found in the mountains, the sounds were happening as I was braking. And braking a lot so it was almost a constant noise. I guess I didn't really give it much attention.
I know my axle was in right and I wasn't experiencing much noise until now. I decided that it was time to go ahead and just replace the pads after 16,500 miles on them and the last 4k or so was pretty hard on them because of the change in driving conditions with weight and towing.
After installing all new pads (yes I visually noticed I was due in the end), that darn sound was very loud at any speed above 25 or so. All the time now, with no change while braking or not. The brakes were all rubbing when freewheeling the tire but that's to be expected a little as the pads break in. BUT that Cicada sound was definitely not normal.
Onto the forums I go. So many posts and threads about rubbing and noisy brakes. The common answers are 1) normal to some degree on the VTX, 2) get the axle centered since it's paramount for the left front brakes to function as designed or 3) fork needs adjusting.
All those were not an issue for mine. I did notice that on the very inner edge of the rotors there was new wear that wasn't there before so I focused on this characteristic.
I read in a few different threads about "beveling the edges" of the pads. That's new for me to read. I took off the pads again and did just that. I figured what the heck.
With my bench grinder I just took off the sharp edges all around all the pads. Not much but enough so that they weren't sharp any more. Installed everything then took it for a ride. Whoa baby!! Quieter than EVER been before as they were completely silent. What a new riding experience. I am so pleased.
So what I was seeing was the inner outside pad was apparantly rubbing the rotor more than ever, and maybe in a location not grabbing before. What I deduced was that "sharp" edge of the pad was touching the rotor almost at the very outside edge of the most inner holes in the rotor ring (toward the axle). As it would spin in the brakes, that sharp edge was contacting that unworn part of the rotor and causing that cicada sound. Hopefully you know what noise I speak of. I mean it sounded like one to the letter!!
I hope someone can get something out of this. I will always bevel the edges of any pad I install from now on. The methods I read were to sand the edges down or to file the edges down. That would no doubt work great too. Just take off the sharp edge all around all the pads in some way. Make sure they are clean though before you place them back on the bike. Brake cleaner works wonders.
Mike
Having lived in the south, those darn Cicadas are loud as heck. I realized that was the sound she was speaking of. Since I was coming down from 12000' in elevation on corners only found in the mountains, the sounds were happening as I was braking. And braking a lot so it was almost a constant noise. I guess I didn't really give it much attention.
I know my axle was in right and I wasn't experiencing much noise until now. I decided that it was time to go ahead and just replace the pads after 16,500 miles on them and the last 4k or so was pretty hard on them because of the change in driving conditions with weight and towing.
After installing all new pads (yes I visually noticed I was due in the end), that darn sound was very loud at any speed above 25 or so. All the time now, with no change while braking or not. The brakes were all rubbing when freewheeling the tire but that's to be expected a little as the pads break in. BUT that Cicada sound was definitely not normal.
Onto the forums I go. So many posts and threads about rubbing and noisy brakes. The common answers are 1) normal to some degree on the VTX, 2) get the axle centered since it's paramount for the left front brakes to function as designed or 3) fork needs adjusting.
All those were not an issue for mine. I did notice that on the very inner edge of the rotors there was new wear that wasn't there before so I focused on this characteristic.
I read in a few different threads about "beveling the edges" of the pads. That's new for me to read. I took off the pads again and did just that. I figured what the heck.
With my bench grinder I just took off the sharp edges all around all the pads. Not much but enough so that they weren't sharp any more. Installed everything then took it for a ride. Whoa baby!! Quieter than EVER been before as they were completely silent. What a new riding experience. I am so pleased.
So what I was seeing was the inner outside pad was apparantly rubbing the rotor more than ever, and maybe in a location not grabbing before. What I deduced was that "sharp" edge of the pad was touching the rotor almost at the very outside edge of the most inner holes in the rotor ring (toward the axle). As it would spin in the brakes, that sharp edge was contacting that unworn part of the rotor and causing that cicada sound. Hopefully you know what noise I speak of. I mean it sounded like one to the letter!!
I hope someone can get something out of this. I will always bevel the edges of any pad I install from now on. The methods I read were to sand the edges down or to file the edges down. That would no doubt work great too. Just take off the sharp edge all around all the pads in some way. Make sure they are clean though before you place them back on the bike. Brake cleaner works wonders.
Mike
