I’m looking to sort out the front brake on my bike at the moment… as it was the damn things reason why I binned the bike a week ago Also the front brake is not making me feel very confident in the braking.
I’ve been looking at replacing the master cylinder and lines, I’ve had a look on ebay at whats avalible and noticed 4 decentish auctions for master cylinders from other bikes:
The brakes are going to be bled and then I’m going to clean the pistons in the calipers. The master cylinder is just very spungy and doesn’t feel right.
Having ridden a storm myself I can go along with no confidence in the front brake. I tried stoppying the bike but it just slid. Brakes are nowhere near as good as those on a Kwaka. As for the solution, the plan is to uprate the lines for braided/kevlar. Full strip and rebuild of calipers, definately change the seals. Will see how it goes from there. If still not happy will go down the road of Brembo Cylinder. Apparently the suspension has already been sorted but I shall probably get that looked at as well. Cant have my girl riding sub standard kit.
The std brakes set-up should be fine for everyday road riding provided everything is in decent condition.
The problem the the storm if you start going for superduper braking is the forks. They are very softly sprung and if you really start to push hard (which you won’t be able to do now, you won’t have enough front grip) the forks bottom out really easy.
have you still got the standard lines on your front brakes? if so dump them and fit some braided lines and flush with fresh fluid (best stuff you can afford but not race fluid as this really needs to be changed a minimum of every 5-6 months) all of the master cylinders you highlighted on ebay are probably all the same size as what you have already with the exception of the ducati brembo one… when you clean the pistons off, also de-glaze the brake pads you can do this with some emery cloth and a flat surface, this will a big difference to the feel and bite from the brakes…
by the way, how did you crash? have you also thought about checking your front tyre??? wear and condition make a massive difference in these conditions…
The front tyre is fine it has less than 1000 miles and its an Bridgstone 020.
The crash was in traffic going along at 20mph, I was using the brake at the time to just slow down a little and then put on a little more pressure to stop. Thats when the front wheel locked up and I lost balance and dropped the bike.
I’m on the look out for braided lines but can’t find any for my bike at a good price, looks like I may have to pop to a shop. But the brakes are going to get a good service when I get the chance.
Just a thought before you go shelling out loads of £’s on Brembos. The calipers from the K3 GSXR are a straight swap for the Nissin set up on the VTR1000 'storm. If memory serves the CBR uses the same calipers as the vtr, someone may be able to correct me there, so may well be a straight bolt on job.
Not had a prob with the front brake set up on my storm, even had the occasional un planned stoppy! Its got 14K on the clock in 5 years so not really had loads of use…time will tell!?!
Apparently, the cbr6 shares the same calipers as the blade and not the storm. The storms pistons are smaller - i dont know this for sure but that what i was told when i was looking at storm calipers for my vfr and was told to go for cbr6 or blade calipers.
My mates Speed Triple was the same wed strip calipers greese pads up, then 3 weeks later same thing. So he found some red rubber greese that goes on pistons to lubricate seals, and now better than new. Iv even done this on the Stealth i could not belive there was no greese at all from new and what a difference now, i recomend this to be done on all bikes. If you buy racing calipers they do not have a dust seal on them so will coroad very fast, hope this helps !!
Ok the firestorm has smaller discs and pistons they are 296mm the cbr should be 320 or 310
the main reason you are having probs with the front (NO OFFENCE) get rid of the 020 I had them on my thunder cat its like riding on plastic they are a medium/ sports touring tyre they are hard in the middle and they give no feel at all and they need a hot day to get any where near warm although they are good in the wet as they are high silicon but they are sh*t.
As for the brakes take them off strip them down and put new seals, what happens is all the old brake dust and road crap build up behind the dust seal then the main seal, so you have to use more pressure to move then the extra force will and does kill the rubber hoses thats why fitting braided ones always makes the brakes feel better but you will get even more performance if you service them.
I can rebuild them for you if you dont know how but do the lot in one hit im going to check the ones on my firestorm
Also the front brake is not making me feel very confident in the braking.