1100GS Rear brake lever

[uncle dick]

The rear brake on my '96 GS is in perfect working order with good caliper, Goodridge hose and Ferodo pads from Steptoe but it's still crap. It basically seems like the lever is too short which means that you have to stand on it to get any decent braking. Having abs is a joke unless you're on mud or gravel.

I notice that the later 1100's and the 1150's had a different lever - is this to give a bit more feel and will they swap?

Any thoughts?

Dick

ps I've come from a K100RS which had a brilliant rear brake - hardly needed the front below about 60mph.

 

[MattW]

The rear brake on my '96 GS is in perfect working order with good caliper, Goodridge hose and Ferodo pads from Steptoe but it's still crap. It basically seems like the lever is too short which means that you have to stand on it to get any decent braking. Having abs is a joke unless you're on mud or gravel.

I notice that the later 1100's and the 1150's had a different lever - is this to give a bit more feel and will they swap?

Any thoughts?

Dick

ps I've come from a K100RS which had a brilliant rear brake - hardly needed the front below about 60mph.

Are you absolutely sure the caliper is good? - free to slide on its pins, pistons free, pads wearing evenly, disk not red hot when you come to a standstill, etc? Failing that, how about the master cylinder?

Since I stripped and refurbed the caliper, my '94 1100 has a great rear brake - plenty of power and feel.

 

[uncle dick]

Caliper is spot on. There just doesn't seem to be enough leverage. Any more thoughts on the later lever?

Dick

 

[Rabbitson]

Probably completely irrelevant, but I found some rubbing between the ridge on the end of the lever and the exhaust system gave some strange behaviour, other than that, I've never had a problem with mine, doesn't give much feel but works well enough.

David

 

[waterloo700]

Assuming everything is in perfect condition - the design of this caliper (single piston, sliding pins and alloy bracket) is not as good as the best opposing piston ones.

Yamaha nailed it back in 1998 with their first R1 - its rear brake was beautifully engineered.

When you stamp on the pedal some of the force goes into distorting the alloy bracket and pins - not to the disk. If you play with longer brake pedals you still won't overcome this basic shortcoming.

All that said - rear brakes are for soft southerners only - aren't they?