Squeaking front brake

[hairygit]

Personally I've never found a squeaky front brake an issue, it's when it doesn't squeal you may well have something wrong it such as a pad sticking/not retracting properly, so time to investigate. Plus, in the event of an incident/accident, witnesses will hear the brake and look, and back you up on the fact you WERE braking.

Sent from my X6pro using Tapatalk

[Athame57]

Personally I've never found a squeaky front brake an issue, it's when it doesn't squeal you may well have something wrong it such as a pad sticking/not retracting properly, so time to investigate. Plus, in the event of an incident/accident, witnesses will hear the brake and look, and back you up on the fact you WERE braking.
Sent from my X6pro using Tapatalk

In 1982 while squeaking my way through the Leather Lane market (what a place to go) in London someone threw an orange at me....

[K2-K6]

Personally I've never found a squeaky front brake an issue, it's when it doesn't squeal you may well have something wrong it such as a pad sticking/not retracting properly, so time to investigate. Plus, in the event of an incident/accident, witnesses will hear the brake and look, and back you up on the fact you WERE braking.
Sent from my X6pro using Tapatalk

In 1982 while squeaking my way through the Leather Lane market (what a place to go) in London someone threw an orange at me....

You may have been caught in the crossfire of that politician that "allegedly " died during a sex act with an orange tied in his mouth.  In all the papers at the time, a right old tale that was.   

[taysidedragon]

Personally I've never found a squeaky front brake an issue, it's when it doesn't squeal you may well have something wrong it such as a pad sticking/not retracting properly, so time to investigate. Plus, in the event of an incident/accident, witnesses will hear the brake and look, and back you up on the fact you WERE braking.
Sent from my X6pro using Tapatalk

In 1982 while squeaking my way through the Leather Lane market (what a place to go) in London someone threw an orange at me....

You may have been caught in the crossfire of that politician that "allegedly " died during a sex act with an orange tied in his mouth.  In all the papers at the time, a right old tale that was.   

A juicy tale!

[Nurse Julie]

Personally I've never found a squeaky front brake an issue, it's when it doesn't squeal you may well have something wrong it such as a pad sticking/not retracting properly, so time to investigate. Plus, in the event of an incident/accident, witnesses will hear the brake and look, and back you up on the fact you WERE braking.
Sent from my X6pro using Tapatalk

In 1982 while squeaking my way through the Leather Lane market (what a place to go) in London someone threw an orange at me....

You may have been caught in the crossfire of that politician that "allegedly " died during a sex act with an orange tied in his mouth.  In all the papers at the time, a right old tale that was.   

A juicy tale!

I found it a bit acidic myself !

[Moorey]

Stop taking the pith. it’s no help to someone with a squeaky brake. Try Making some anti squeal shims for the back of the pads.

[Athame57]

Stop taking the pith. it’s no help to someone with a squeaky brake. Try Making some anti squeal shims for the back of the pads.

How do I make them?

[Moorey]

Try these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LARGE-EBC-ANTI-SQUEAL-SELF-ADHESIVE-BRAKE-PAD-SHIMS-NOISE-REDUCTION-152mm-x-51mm/222026723334?hash=item33b1d2f006:g:ApEAAOSwDuJWxIHK  it's easier than getting the shim steel and cutting some out.

[K2-K6]

Turning kinetic energy into sound waves is how these things stop 

Isn't that what a band does Steve?

That's much closer than generally appreciated.

With the original type pads containing resins,  then it's this component that comes to the pad surface in "glazing" the surface. This is most closely related to string instruments which are bowed with resin on the bowstring to get it to resonate. It's the disc which is making the sonic performance while being exited by the glazed pads.
The normal way to avoid this is,  with new pads, you allow something like 50 miles to get them to conform to the disc surface,  then you have to raise the temperature by driving it around with the brake dragging until it gets hot enough to burn out the resins that migrate to the pad surface. It literally sets fire to the resins as they come into contact with the disc.
Once this is done,  the bike should be ridden without the brake being used to cool it down and not park it so the pads stick to the disc. Prepared like this, they are much harder to glaze as the resin shouldn't be there.

That's for conventional (resin) pads.

Sintered are different.  If you imagine a sintered material as more like a sugar cube,  the material is pressed together and under compression plus heat it sticks the material together,  largely without resins.
Another problem then exists with these in that most sintered material is (or derived from) formulated to work with disc materials that share the surface wear between the two components. This interaction between the two doesn't really happen on these older more stainless discs,  so the pad face doesn't glaze as such (not in the conventional sense of resin coated surface)  but ends up really polished and results in a very similar resonance causing effect.
Whether we can use this material aggressively enough in the way these bikes are now ridden I don't know. Ideally they need heavy pressure to encourage the surface to be worn quicker.
In addition to this,  most modern discs have much more float built in between the disc and mounting rotor which these don't have.  This alone makes them more likely to resonate.
It may not be possible to stop these squeaking in comparison to the 750 for example which due to higher weight and speed combined may tip the balance in regard to pad wear.

[Athame57]

Hi Moorey...I ordered those. Thanks, I'll keep you posted after fitting.

[sprinta]

Which brake pads are you using?

Are they sintered or non sintered?

Are there sintered pads available?

[Nurse Julie]

I tried sintered on my CB400/4, bloody awful and still squeeked, and I had to take the rough edges off with sand paper. Having read K1-K6's in depth analysis of both types of pads, I think I just glaze every type I put in, it must be a girl thing 🙄🙄🙄

[ted_paper]

Apologies for reviving this post...but have a question.
I've been "suffering" for a while with the squeaky front brake and decided to change the pads. The new pads came with a big plastic washer? included in the kit, but there was no washer when I removed the old ones.
Should there be one? I have a replacement phenolic piston fitted - would this retract slightly less than the standard one as I couldn't fit the pads in with the new washer in place, so wasn't sure if it is spacer or something.

PS...still squealing...grrr 

[Nurse Julie]

Apologies for reviving this post...but have a question.
I've been "suffering" for a while with the squeaky front brake and decided to change the pads. The new pads came with a big plastic washer? included in the kit, but there was no washer when I removed the old ones.
Should there be one? I have a replacement phenolic piston fitted - would this retract slightly less than the standard one as I couldn't fit the pads in with the new washer in place, so wasn't sure if it is spacer or something.

PS...still squealing...grrr 

The big plastic washer is an anti squeal shim. Most people just throw them away when they change the pads as they don't do anything positive to stop the squealing.

[ted_paper]

Hi Julie,
Thanks for that - never like to have parts "left over" when replacing things, always think I've missed something important...