Motorbike brakes can be a pain in the arse I’m not a merchanic and don’t preach to be one
I’ve restored a few cars over the years and grew up around bike and car merchanics
Since I had the daytona it’s alaways has spongy brakes when it was under warranty it was always going back to the dealer they could never cure it
Had everything changed after a week it went back to spongy brakes I gave up taking it back as they said there’s notihng more they could do
I experimented with different pads it’s got better but not cured I went over to double lines from the master cyclinder better but still not perfect
Then two years ago I moved office and found a place to service the bike while I was at work just around the corner he was abit of a geek towards triumph
I picked the bike up from him one day and jezz the brakes nearly threw me over the bars at the slightest touch so I asked him what he had done he told me my triumph has design flaw in the master cyclinder that only shows on ppl who do lots of mileage and are hard on the front brakes
He told me what to do so now every four weeks I do what he told me to do and the brakes are now as good as I would expect
The other thing he told me to do was change the master cyclinder to a k7 1000 or later which I have but have never got round to swapping it over
The Suzuki and Kawasaki six pots are known for being spongy and shyte to sort out there’s a reason they are no longer fitted or used by any manufacture
I never used Scotch garage services(yet) but he has always been helpful through emails and very knowledgeable once the weather changes I’ll pop round just to say hello and to add my fig biscuits to the tin that’s for sure
I’m not a mechanic, but I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Considering the original post it sounds like a logical fault diagnosis process. If it is not immediately obvious what is causing the problem you have to work through the possible causes logically till you find it. They do the same process at a dealer and you have to pay for it there too.
Scorch has done work on four different bikes for me (including brakes) and im very happy with his work. i thought the “shame” bit was a bit harsh adrian but i can see why you were upset, but bikes is bikes, and they can throw up frustrating problems which take time to sort out. sometimes its best to try and resolve a problem before leaving feedback.
i think if a business has a lot of customers every now and then one of them will be unhappy about something and leave neg feedback. i think statistically its innevatable. if its handled well though, without falling into a slanging match and the parties remain civil (which looks like the case here) and can resolve their differences, it doesnt look bad on the business at all. in fact its reassuring if anything!
I had a 2001 fireblade, before I went to Barcelona on it i decided to fit braided lines, renew the pads and replace the fluid front and rear, I’m a fully qualified mechanic (just don’t do it anymore) and it took 2 of us around 4 hours just to try and bleed them through, we couldn’t work out what was wrong with it. In the end we stripped the braided lines off and put the standard ones back on and they bled through fine, it was obviously a flaw in the lines or banjos, so I know what a pig bleeding brakes can be, was the bussa subject to the master cylinder/servo recall? If so has it been done??
Surely the fact Scorch was willing to go to work at 7pm on a Sunday especially to try to fix this is worthy of a “praise” post in itself, regardless of the outcome? At least he tried to fix it, and tried hard by the sound of it.
Adrian - The thing that amazes me is that someone offered to come out in the late evening on a Sunday to help sort out what you had identified was a simple brake bleed, and turned out to be more complicated with yout bike’s braking system. It sounds like Scorch arrived to try and address the brake issue, located the problem beyond the brake pad level, and then started drifting into trying to diagnose the problem, which he hadn’t signed up to, but risks upsetting you since you hadn’t foreseen the bike had an issue beyond a simple bleed.
Maybe Scorch needs to say no and be more firm and less helpful in future and certainly never take on a late evening job without factoring the whole night extra if things don’t work out, or forewarning very clearly that all he eill do is change the pads. Its at that point, when the pads were clearly showing some life left, that maybe the work should.ve stopped on the dot and Scorch telling you that’s all he will do, because the line is crossed and now the diagnostics are the issue. I think there’s always a risk that being too willing to step in and help risks getting a slap in the face on return. Had you taken it to a service garage, they would probably bill you time for the diagnosis as well.
My garage charged me about £150 when I had an issue with soft brakes. After taking it in for a whole day, they came out and told me never to spray my brake pads with ACF50 again :D. It was just as squishy and no better off and they did nothing to fix it, but they did tell md what I realised after reading the small print on the can, for £150
Anyhow, don’t wish to inflame things and I can understand how upsetting it is to find yourself at the end of a diagnostic goosechase without a technician to finish it off. Doesn’t sound like your fault nor Scorch’s - maybe it’s because your bike’s braking system just needs one of those strip and rehose services?
Hope you sort it out with each other before the end of the year. Good luck with your brakes.
Not really. If I were to spend my entire Sunday afternoon working on your bike and it came out worse for it, it would seem fair for each of us to be disappointed by the outcome.
This post kind of annoys me as I know how hard scorch worked on Adrian’s bike coming in on his day off just to help you
and also when i first met you when you came to workshop your brakes where rubbish and after Tim fettled them where much better then when you came in…
But its like i also said to you that you should change from the 6 pots to 4 as i have a stream of customers buying 4 pots for these very reason and that you should be putting decent braided lines on and even offered to put you in contact with a HEL dealer i deal with and needs be upgrade your front master…
And fact of the matter is that i sold you calipers for a cheaper price then i could of got just to help you out and then you come on here which the minimal amount of knowledge you personally have and have the audacity to shame Tim personally i feel is a Shame on you is in order as after speaking to you about brakes i would rather my 2 year old daughter tell me about them then you…
maybe since all involved and more have had their say, an admin can lock the thread? before it creates a more hostile environment.
new year, new start.
or if you have ever seen frozen…
I don’t know Scorch or Tim but from my own experience with the Hayabusa 6 Pot there is a common fault with these calipers.
I have the exact same experience with spongy brakes after replacing piston seals, replacing master cylinders, replacing calipers, brake lines - no avail, brakes are spongy.
Spoke with Suzuki GB technical and they said (unofficially) it was common fault with the 6 pots. They recommended a tried and test fix which was fitting GSXR750 4 pot calipers on, to give superior braking and a firm lever action. When I asked for Suzuki’s insight on the problem they suggested a combination of possible errors - the master cylinder combination with twin 6 pots not ideally designed i.e. the sheer surface area in each caliper that the master cylinder had to pressurise may not give a firm lever -> spongy lever. They reassured me that the brakes were safe and would pass the MOT brake test but the “feel” would not be firm/sharp.
I was lucky enough to have access to Suzuki technical because I ran the workshop in a Suzuki dealership and can confirm that the Hayabusa 6 pots were the problem, not the competence of my mechanics. Once we tried the 4 pot calipers the problem was gone. An expensive lesson but a right of passage.
Lastly, if you look at the latest Suzuki’s you will see that the sports bikes now have Brembo calipers because Suzuki’s Achilles heel was always been the Tokico brakes. If you look really closely at the new H’busa you will see 4 pot Brembo calipers. In my opinion, the 6 pot H’busa calipers had a design fault.
Well I think Joey sums it all up very well, a quick Google for “Busa spongy brakes” and there are reams of people with the same problem.
A quick apology to Tim and thread closed is in order.
If the current R6 carnation fit, they’re about the best monobloc four pot calipers you can get without paying through the nose. Maybe you can get Tim to fit them for you;)
I’d like to see this thread deleted, on the grounds that no-one, including Adrian can be specific about what it is I should actually be ashamed of.
I trade on my reputation, and unless the casual reader bothers to read past the first post, this kind of muppetry is extremely damaging.
I’d like to thank everyone who has chipped in with advice and information that has supported my initial conclusions. I’m genuinely touched by that.
Hopefully I’ll be going the extra mile for you all in 2015
To be fair, Adrian did set out in his post what happened, and it doesn’t appear that he has lied about the facts.
Anyone who has owned a bike, and not a brand new off the shelf and taken in under warranty bike, but an old clapped out banger of a bike that breaks down every other week, will recognise that what Scorch did was exactly what you do in this situation. You go through the possible problems eliminating what it can be, you eliminate each possible problem working through the cheapest and easiest fixes first, and then moving on to the more expensive and time consuming fixes.
Anyone with this experience, and therefore anyone who is likely to use Scorch’s services, will see that Scorch has done exactly what you would expect to be done.
There is no shame in what Scorch has done and anyone likely to use his service will recognise that.
