Hi guys,

Apologies, my technical knowledge is pretty poor, and was wondering if I could get some advice...

When I took my GS500 in for a minor repair recently, my mechanic told me my rear caliper was binding, and needed sorting. When its on the center stand, the rear wheel will turn, but won't spin easily. When I take it out for a blast, it seems to be ok, and when parking it seems to roll smoothly. But after a night's rest, it becomes quite difficult to reverse-wheel (paddle) out of the driveway.

I've been quoted about £250 to get it sorted, which I'm not very hapy about.

Is this a common problem, and if so, is there an easy solution?

I am up for getting my hands dirty, and am tempted to remove the caliper and try to rebuild it (is this crazy?), or perhaps just replace it.


I appreciate that you guys can only speculate, but any advice would be great.

(ps. it's 23:00 in the uk, I'm off to bed so I'll check replies first thing tomorrow... nite all...

Not sure if you can easily find a caliper rebuild kit, although I know they exist since it's just parts..

Cheaper and easier to just get a new (used) caliper off eBay.

probably safer than me trying to rebuild one lol...

Is it an easy swap? Sorry for the basic question, I am waiting for a Haynes manual to arrive, but it's taking its time

Of you know how to bleed your brake lines it should be a pretty straight forward swap. Drain the lines and calliper. Unbolt and replace. Reseat the banjo and washers and rebleed. While your at it might be an idea to change your brake lines to a braided SS line. Swapping over the pads is easy as well. Make sure the pistons are pushed in enough to get them on the rotor though. Also make sure you get some brake cleaner and give it a good clean and scrub. Don't know how these second hand callipers have been treated. Better to be sure.


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Last month I picked up a nudes rear caliber and mc off of the bay for $30 us


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Pistons stick in calipers causing brakes to drag when they are pushed back in still dirty when putting on new pads.  Had a sticky one early on with my 97 GS and have popped the pistons out and cleaned them with SOS type steel wool soap pads or with those green kitchen pads and put them back in with plenty of brake fluid to lubricate them, and then bleed them.  Another problem that can cause piston sticking is the outer rubber wipers that can get rolled over after a couple of pad changes causing sticking.  These wipers may wipe off a little brake dust but otherwise do nothing for you so I just throw them away after the first pad change or two.  The inner seal is all you need if your pushing clean pistons back into the caliper.

I've done it this way on front and rear calipers for 80k miles on the 97 and another 100k miles on my current 02 GS.  Riding year around here in NE Ohio splashing thru much salt water my calipers were very rusty and badly worn at 100k miles so I replaced them both with like new ones from ebay last year and they were like new with only 2600 miles on them and the pads were also like new, cost $28 each including shipping about the same as a good set of pads so that might be the best and easiest way to go if you need pads too.  If you don't need pads and it's a low milage bike then just poping the pistons and cleaning them will only cost you a can of brake fluid.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/jcp8832/GSbrakechainlog_zps1b8c96a9.jpg

By the way, I've never done anything to a master cylinder but put fluid in it and have used 4 of the 6 bikes I've had for over 80k miles each.

That's all really great advice guys, thank you all very much

I think I'll have a go at cleaning the existing calipers, before I seek out a replacement. I will also post up a few pics when I get into this.

Sorry for the double post guys,

I was wondering, if I was going to pick up a caliper off ebay for this little project, are there any options (in terms of makes, models) available, or would I be best off getting one off a GS500?

Cheers

Azbo, I've looked a little at other rear calipers that would "work" for the GS500, and there are quite a few other bikes that use the exact same caliper. It's been a while since I looked so I don't want to say any particular model and steer you wrong, but it lead me to believe that the stock rear caliper is actually pretty good for a "budget bike" like the GS.

I'm not saying there isn't anything out there that is an improvement, just sharing my findings.

Thanks for the words Big Rich, I will keep it like for like

I bought it a few months ago, but not really used it too much since. I was out yesterday, giving it an airing after an oil change.

I noticed (among several other things lol) that when on the centre stand, the rear wheel seems to entounter resistance as it spins (manually). Some parts of its cycle are relatively smooth, but it stops dead at one part of the cycle.

So I was thinking, could this problem be linked to the alignment of the wheel? If the axels are not in straight, and the wheel was at an angle, I assume that's what would happen... maybe not.

Anyway, I started to check the alignment of the notches; the left side is 3.5 notches from the end, whereas the right side is only 3 notches. What's more, the right side adjuster screw seems to have about 4mm more than the left side.

I guess my question is, could the wheel issue be linked to the mis-alignment of the rear axel? And following on from that, is it nomal to have one side's marker notch different from the other?

As usual, thank you all for taking the time to read, and share your knowledge

[EDIT]

So a small amount of research has confirmed that the two sides should be equal, so I'll give that a go tomorrow... hopefully that should help. I had some new tyres put on recently, I'm wondering if the shop did a poor job of putting the rear wheel back on.

Actually, I'd be more inclined to believe that your chain has some tight spots in it. Check out the chain a little more. If there are tight spots you should replace it.


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