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Warped Rotors!
Hi all, I recently acquired my first victory! It’s a 2014 CCT with 17k miles on it. Only had it for about a week now. Something I noticed on the test drive was what best can be described as a pulsating feeling in the front brake lever at lower speeds. The pulsating was accompanied by some shaking at highway speeds under braking. Took it for a short drive and didn’t use my front brakes at all. Checked the temp of the rotors. Left front rotor was hot to the touch whole the right front was stone cold, which is what I expected. I took everything apart, cleaned the rivets on the rotor, took the pads out and cleaned all the brake dust off the pads and caliper. Took the caliper apart and cleaned up the pistons. Everything looks great! Put it back together and went for another short ride and didn’t use the front brakes. Same situation as before. Left rotor hot, right rotor cold. Figured I had a warped rotor. Replace with galfer rotors and got new pads. Just got done with that and it brakes nice and smooth now. I drove it about 10 miles and did not use my front brakes. Got back and left rotor is not cold but it’s just ever so slightly warm to the touch. Right side is stone cold. To back track quick, I put a pry bar between the pads on the left caliper with it off the bike to give it something to squeeze on to and had someone pump the crap out of the front brakes to see if the caliper was staying “clamped”. As soon as he let off the lever, the pry bar fell right out as the caliper was releasing properly so to me that ruled out a bad brake line. I’m kind of at a loss here. Don’t want to warp or ruin an expensive set of rotors and am planning a week of over 1k miles in the next month and a half and this has me worried about that. Anyway, sorry for the long winded post but I’m trying to be as thorough as possible. P.S. I bought this bike in Iowa about an hour away from rylans shop! Was gonna swing by and take a Pic lol.
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4 Replies
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It is normal for the pads to drag on the rotor without you applying the brakes. This may explain why one rotor is a few degrees warmer than ambient.
It is normal for a Cross bike to warp the front rotors. I see this a lot.
So, I guess I wouldn’t overthink it. I doubt there is an issue here to correct.
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Thanks for the reply Rylan. I have since just continued to drive the bike and monitor and all seems well. Enjoying the bike more and more every time I ride! Thanks!
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Hey Rylan, so after about 650 miles with my new Galfer rotors and Galfer brake pads, I’m experiencing warped rotor symptoms again.. I bedded the pads how galfer recommended and the brakes were perfectly smooth. I’ve been noticing that there’s shaking from the front end again from 60mph down to 40ish. It’s not nearly as bad as it was but it’s not smooth like it should be. Rotors stay cool when I’m not using them, not like one caliper seems to be hanging up. Expensive rotors to warp and I only have a 6 month window to warranty them. But I’d really like to fix the problem instead of just keep replacing parts. I’m not hard on the brakes at all, mostly highway driving and use lots of engine braking typically. I guess if there’s maybe anything you can think of to check I’m pretty much at a loss.
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You are the first person in my career that I’ve heard this from. So I have nothing to go off of.
It is common for a person to warp the stock rotors. I keep them in stock it is so common. But then, I replace the rotor and I never hear from them again – presumably because the problem was fixed and they rode off happily into the sunset.
No one has ever called me back 30 days later and said “ok, I warped the next set”. It’s never happened. All my recommendations will be based off of real-world things I’ve seen and done. Since this has never happened to me, I can’t say “oh, it’s the XXXX part, or adjust the YYYY thingie”.
Generally when something weird is happening that I’ve never seen before it is caused by something that I cannot predict – the person that has been working on the bike. In other words – someone fucked the bike up somehow. I don’t know if this applies to you or not. The first thing I can think of when I think “how could someone mess up the braking system on this bike” would be to strap the bike down to a trailer and pinch the brake line with the strap. Then the line is crushed and won’t allow fluid to move properly. Another thought is that someone tightened the handle too much – it’s not springing back. Maybe they used the wrong brake fluid? I don’t know. I do know that I’ve not yet seen a caliper stick to the point that it would warp multiple rotors. Usually when a caliper sticks it clamps down so hard you come skidding to a stop and the rotor is blued through and through. I’ve seen this on other models.
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