Sort those squealing brakes

[Tobers]

My front brakes started squealing badly recently. I removed the pads, gave the calipers & pads a bit of a clean, and then put copper grease on the back of the pads and the points where the anti-rattle springs touch.

Now, no squealing Took about 15 mins - I removed the calipers to do this but I think it's not strictly necessary to do so, but you get better access for cleaning.

I replaced the rear pads as well - they had about 1mm material left (!) at 9500 miles.

Andy

 

[blackburnlee]

Tobers

Got the same problem with my front brakes. Already tried the copper grease but didn't seem to help too much. Perhaps I need to have another go.

By the way, the Tobinators seem to work well. I've got the screen on the highest setting at the back and the 3rd notch up front on the Tobinators. Cheers Fella.

 

[Mouse]

I've tried the usual remedy of copper greasing the back of the pads, also without much success.

What I did try recently though, seems ot have worked a bit better. I removed the bolts that hold the brake disc to the wheel (one at a time so the disc didn't fall off ) and applied a little copper grease to the hat shaped spacer that goes around the bolt. Only the spacer, not the bolt itself. I then applied threadlock to the bolt and reinserted it.

This seems to have almost totally cured my squealing problem. I'm not sure why. And I'm not sure if it was a good idea, as if the disc gets hot, the grease could melt out and contaminate the disc and pads. So I'm not advising anyone to try this, just passing on information

Having said that, I haven't had any problems so far and that was 500 miles ago.

 

[philo]

The squealing front brake seems to be becoming a pretty common issue. Mine's been back to SLM twice now with no success. On the first visit they cleaned the pads and greased the backs. On the second visit they changed the pads. Neither has worked, and the squealing from 20mph to 0mph is unbearable, especially riding through town every day. As I said in another post, I wouldn't put up with it on a £90 push bike - on a £9,000 "quality" motorbike it's just embarassing.

Having scoured all the posts on this, it seems that only two cures have been posted: (1) some lucky souls seem to have cured it by cleaning the pads and applying copper grease, or (2) there is the method used by mouse and werner2 (http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22654&perpage=16&pagenumber=2) involving greasing the disc mounting bolts. I want to try this second method, but wonder if anyone knows the official torque setting for the brake disk bolts. I'd hate to snap them off, or to have them fall off later!

Thanks for any advice....

 

[Mouse]

Torque smorck!

I just tightened them to what felt like the right amount. BUT of course this is highly irresponsible and potentially dangerous and I don't want anyone to sue me when their brake disc falls off! So go have a look at http://www.r1200gs.info/ to find the correct torque to use (24Nm)

Oh by the way, they won't fall off if you threadlock them - disc bolts are pretty much the only fastener on my bike I'd ever use threadlock on - usually it does more harm than good, but not here

 

[ozymandismotard]

Squeek squeek

Firstly, hi everyone, I am new.

That said, I aso have squeeling brakes aftes just 150 kilometers.

Local dealer says I did not run in the brakes enough, but what do they know?

I am swapping to EBC HH pads next week, time will tell

Ozy from France

 

[Mouse]

They may be right, to an extent, I found the brakes on mine squeal less if I use them hard.

I'm wondering if the grease I put on the mountings is a red herring ... maybe reseating the disc is what cured the squealing. After all, the sound is going to be caused by the disc vibrating, whatever the cause.

 

[philo]

Thanks for the torque settings Mouse - I'm a bit ham-fisted so it's always nice to know when to stop turning....

Anyway, it seems to have worked! In a slightly cowardly way I just did one disc last night (on the basis that if I screwed it up or contaminated it with grease then I'd still have at least one working disc....). I used a matchstick to apply a tiny amount of copper grease to the outside of each spacer to lubricate where it touches the hole in the disc. And blow me if on my journey to work this morning I have the sound of silence. Almost. There's still a tiny amount of squeal, but then I only did one disc, so that stands to reason.

Every time I touched the brake I expected it to come back (or the disc to fall off, but that's another story) but so far so good. I hope I haven't spoken too soon, but will do the other side tonight.

I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed the ride after 3,000 squealing miles!

 

[blackburnlee]

Good news on the beake squealing front. I tried the trick with applying copper grease to the collars on the front disc mounting bolts. What do you know, it works!! I'm about to head off to Portugal and here's hoping that it doesn't return.

 

[The Machine Cat]

Hmmmm...
a French lost in translation here...
What the hell is "copper grease" ?
Never heard of that. A link or any other info would be nice, as the squealing is now loud enough to cover the complaints of my girlfriend about my speed (!)
As you can guess the squealing is now VERY strong and I am fed up with it.

 

[blackburnlee]

Copper grease

Copper grease is notable for it's temparature resistance, is brown/copper in colour and is available from most car/bike accessory shops (Even Halfords I believe).

I bought a small (50ml) tube and its lasted me this and one or two other jobs. Cost was approx 3-4 pounds.

Does that answer your question?

 

[Mouse]

It's copper coloured because it has small particles of metallic copper in it

 

[Schtum]

It's copper coloured because it has small particles of metallic copper in it

And like all petro-chemicals, should be kept well away from rubber parts; particularly brake piston seals. A mistake so common it's almost universal, is to lather copper grease on the back of brake pads from where it migrates onto the pistons and contaminates the seals. This causes them to swell and the pistons stick.

The correct stuff to use on brakes, if you must use anything, is either pukka brake grease or silicone grease*......yes, the stuff that plumbers' merchants sell to assist in mating plastic pipes.

*This advice courtesy of a petro-chemical engineer friend of mine who just happens to be the head of the motorcycle division of a large multi-national oil company.

 

[Howard Millichap]

And like all petro-chemicals, should be kept well away from rubber parts; particularly brake piston seals. A mistake so common it's almost universal, is to lather copper grease on the back of brake pads from where it migrates onto the pistons and contaminates the seals. This causes them to swell and the pistons stick.

That depends how much you use.

A "smear" is all you need. Enough to absorb the vibration.

 

[JayGee]

...The correct stuff to use on brakes, if you must use anything, is either pukka brake grease or silicone grease*......yes, the stuff that plumbers' merchants sell to assist in mating plastic pipes.
...

This is true but don't use the plumbers merchants variety as it has too low a melting point and will spread, possibly onto the pads/disc. Use the pukka brake grease or use copper grease and keep it well away from the ribber seals etc.

 

[The Machine Cat]

Merci a lot for your answer guys...

 

[Schtum]

This is true but don't use the plumbers merchants variety as it has too low a melting point and will spread, possibly onto the pads/disc.

Again, the advice of my petro-chemical engineer friend is that this is not the case.

 

[JayGee]

Again, the advice of my petro-chemical engineer friend is that this is not the case.

I don't claim to be an expert so maybe he's correct but the plumbing silicone grease I use for lubricating plastic/rubber pushfit pipes is very soft and spreads far too easily for me to be happy putting it anywhere near my brakes so I use copper grease on the back and edge of the pads to help stop brake squeal. Probably OK to use the plumbers silicone on seals and pistons as this is unlikely to spread as far as the disc/pad surface, but you can buy special brake grease which is silicone based. I'd rather buy this and be sure the brakes will not be affected by it.

 

[Schtum]

The guy who recommends and uses the plumbers' silicone grease just happens to head up the motorcycle division of a large multi-national oil company which markets its own brake grease.

 

[JayGee]

The guy who recommends and uses the plumbers' silicone grease just happens to head up the motorcycle division of a large multi-national oil company which markets its own brake grease.

Well I did say I wasn't an expert! I'll go sit in the corner with the big D hat on. dance pize