free website stats program Man am I lucky !!! | Harley Davidson Forums

Man am I lucky !!!

Slo-Ryd

Junior Member
Contributor
Thursday night while backing out of a friends driveway with my bike not running, i hear the rear brake dragging/grinding a little. Popped off the right saddlebag to have a look see. Yup time for rear brakes as the pads couldnt of had more than a 16th of an inch left on em. Now thats getting your monies worth:p

Friday after work i stop and get a set of pads and begin changing them. Compressed the inner pistons and removed the inner pad. As i'm attempting to insert the new pad i'm struggling to get it to go in and seems like a real tight fit. I stick a small wonder bar in between the caliper and rotor to make sure the pistons are fully compressed and notice some wiggle in the whole wheel assembly. This cant be right so i grab the wheel in the 3 and 9 position and holy shmoykies its clunking side to side at least a quarter inch. Rotor side bearing is wasted. Pull everything apart and take the wheel off and find i had a large nail in the tire that i hadnt seen with the head completely worn off. Tire was about due to be changed anyway and I had a brand new Michelin Commander sitting in the shop and took it to my local indy. New bearings, mount and balance and out the door for $160. He asked me how i couldnt have noticed the rear bearing problem and i told him i honestly didnt feel any ill handling problems and frequently commute to work with 80 mph speeds and several sweeping corners along the route. No shimmys or feelings of the rear end dancing around at all. Just an occasional minor squirrel feeling if i hit some tar snakes or grooved pavement which i'm used to and consider normal. I really can't believe i missed something like the bearing and even the nail since i am so meticulous with my bikes. Rear bearing felt fine when i got the bike in Feb and gave it a thorough inspection. Ive put 4500 miles on it and know some bearings sometimes go out in less mileage if cheaply made. Thank God for watching out for me. Dont wanna think of the possibilities of that bearing disintegrating at highway speed during a ride with the Mrs or commute.
WAP.gif
 
There's two way of looking at everything Al, and you have the good way. Instead of how many things went wrong, you see how lucky you got by hearing a noise. I think I'll go to the garage and wiggle a few things, just to be sure. :s
 
I am always amazed how our bikes talk to us. It must be the heart and soul of the 2 wheels. :s
 
Usually when you really get to know your vehicle you will be able to tell when something is wrong on this occasion you felt something wrong and did the right thing and investigated the issue
However at times we can all miss something so it is good from time to time to have another experienced person look over all the safety related items on any vehicle we have as a problem can develop slowly and we may not notice it as it develops
Here in UK we have an annual MOT inspection inspector found a leaking fork seal i had missed on the dyna in april he was happy that finally after all these years 3 bikes a year he had found a fault on one of my bikes and i was happy that the fault had been identified before it had become dangerous

Brian
 
There's two way of looking at everything Al, and you have the good way. Instead of how many things went wrong, you see how lucky you got by hearing a noise. I think I'll go to the garage and wiggle a few things, just to be sure. :s

That IS another reason why BigAL66 IS not Big AL 666.... good numbers and he must Live right...:D

He is a very Valuable Member like many here... Always there with GOOD advice and suggestions...

Good On YOU BigAL66...............

signed....BUBBIE

Just send the 20$ to me where you did last time....:s
 
I think what actually allowed me to see how much play there really was, is when the brake pad was out. My theory is that the rotor is sandwiched between the two pads fairly tight and can mask the amount of play that's really present.

In hindsight, there are two really glaring telltale signs that i should've picked up on and that is that I ate up the rear tire fairly quickly (5500) miles or so since the previous had put new front and rears. I put 4500 of them on there and when i bought it in February they looked brand new.

The other thing is the pads themselves. What i imagine is with as much slop that the wheel had, the rotor was constantly compressing the pads and pistons into the caliper and eating up the brake lining like candy. I looked at them when i first got the bike and gave it a thorough inspection. About an 1/8" of lining was on them. The new set only comes with about 1/4" of lining at the most so chewing them up that quick is another clue i missed along with the fairly long pedal travel after riding for extended periods on the freeway. Around town the pedal should've felt firmer from pumping them up more often due to frequent braking. You still with me.......? It is all starting to become clearer for me the chain of events that was taking place all along that easily went unnoticed. Brake pedal now feels nice and firm all the time.

So in short, excessive rear tire wear, coupled with brake wear and long pedal travel after extended rides = a real bad set of wheel bearings in my case, especially the rotor side.

Serious checks like these will become part of my now planned monthly THOROUGH inspection routine:s
WAP.gif
 
Back
Top