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Front brake question...


drew95gt

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Picked up a gently used 2007 Ninja 650R last week (4k miles on it) to satisfy my sportbike/commuter itch and I have a quick question. The thing runs awesome, but the front brake seems to be "surging" or like grabbing and releasing...like what you would imagine if you squeezed and released the brake lever over and over again. There is no shake or shimmy with high speed braking, this is more of a lower speed issue. Any ideas of what it could be? The pads look great and the rotors show no signs of neglect and no squealing or other problems. Thanks for any ideas of where to start tracking down this issue.

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Will check...that seems kinda odd for such a low mile bike to have warped rotors though doesn't it? I thought it may have had something to do with the fact it sat for basically 1 and a half years.

Never know, sometimes a little abuse goes a long way. Jack up the front wheel or the whole bike to get some sort of pointer or indicator up against the side of a rotor. Spin the wheel and you'll know right away which one is bad or possibly both. You may get lucky and find some rotor bolts have backed out causing the imbalance, but I'm doubting thats the case. Free-floating rotors or are these one piece? Sorry, not familiar with 650R's

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Free floating...and the thing that got me was there was no high speed shimmy like you would expect from a warped rotor. It is more of a pogo effect (even the fork compresses and rebounds slightly) when applying the brake. It is weird...no shake to the bars or anything just a bouncing like slamming the brakes on and off. I will check the rotor bolts too, good idea. It is funny, kinda makes me look like a noob when stopping like I am jamming the brakes then letting off.

Edited by drew95gt
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Slightly warped rotors at speed "may" feel like more of a vibration, or tick, or barely noticeable at all until its moving slow enough allowing you to feel more of the drag against the pad. I dont have a lot of experience with warped rotors but do listen to smart folk on occasions, so I falsly appear like I be more smarter than I is:D

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I'm going to try and clean everything first, especially since the bike sat for a while. Perhaps the little buttons are seized on the floating rotors as well, looks like I will be spending my next day off in the garage...lol. I'm going to try everything besides full replacement first, OEM rotors aren't exactly cheap, but if it needs them..it needs them.

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Cleaned the buttons on the rotors so they spin freely now, several were seized up probably due to sitting and not being ridden in a long time. I also scuffed the surface of the rotors which helped as well. Took it for a test spin and it is much improved...will still probably throw some new pads on after the summer when I change the fluids. Thanks for the help and ideas.

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