Here's a good brake story.
would have been different if he'd LISTENED to my advice.....
A buddy of mine had just finished putting together his 73 Harley shovelhead - prior to paint. He wanted to do all the fitting and whatnot - as this was a custom job. The frame was FLHT the front end was FXR - with custom aftermarket brakes. He was having a bit of problems with it - as they were a trailing edge caliper on a leading edge fork. I told him that I could see problems with that - but he "knows what he's doing"...
OK. Who am I to argue? Your bike. Your build.
He decided it was ready for a test ride. The engine had been previously run - so no problem, right.??
I decided to follow along on my Sporty.
He got down the road a couple miles from the house and pulled over. He got off, and checked - and the front brake was HOT. It shouldn't have been because he'd only used them lightly twice. I had some tools - and said - "Let's take that caliper off -- no sense in burning shit up - or locking up a brake".
Patience wasn't his long suit.
He said fuck it - and hopped back on the bike and headed for home. I decided to hold back - and give him lots of room in case shit went south.
Boy did it.
He later explained that when he got up to 60mph or so - he tapped the front brake to see if it would free it up. Nope. Quite the opposite.
He swerved a coupe times on the locked up front wheel - then the back end decided to go first for a while -- my buddy - in his mid 60's at the time - came off and started to try and do cartwheels - trying to keep his ass off the pavement. That didn't work so well either. The bike decided to do a cartwheel of it's own and then slid on it's side to a stop - with my bud stopping a few feet shorter.
I stopped my Sportster - hopped off and ran up to see how bad he was. He was just sitting up - bleeding from the head (his glasses gouged his eyebrow) hands, ass, elbows, knees.... ect..... And he said "Well - that didn't work".
No shit.
...
would have been different if he'd LISTENED to my advice.....
A buddy of mine had just finished putting together his 73 Harley shovelhead - prior to paint. He wanted to do all the fitting and whatnot - as this was a custom job. The frame was FLHT the front end was FXR - with custom aftermarket brakes. He was having a bit of problems with it - as they were a trailing edge caliper on a leading edge fork. I told him that I could see problems with that - but he "knows what he's doing"...
OK. Who am I to argue? Your bike. Your build.
He decided it was ready for a test ride. The engine had been previously run - so no problem, right.??
I decided to follow along on my Sporty.
He got down the road a couple miles from the house and pulled over. He got off, and checked - and the front brake was HOT. It shouldn't have been because he'd only used them lightly twice. I had some tools - and said - "Let's take that caliper off -- no sense in burning shit up - or locking up a brake".
Patience wasn't his long suit.
He said fuck it - and hopped back on the bike and headed for home. I decided to hold back - and give him lots of room in case shit went south.
Boy did it.
He later explained that when he got up to 60mph or so - he tapped the front brake to see if it would free it up. Nope. Quite the opposite.
He swerved a coupe times on the locked up front wheel - then the back end decided to go first for a while -- my buddy - in his mid 60's at the time - came off and started to try and do cartwheels - trying to keep his ass off the pavement. That didn't work so well either. The bike decided to do a cartwheel of it's own and then slid on it's side to a stop - with my bud stopping a few feet shorter.
I stopped my Sportster - hopped off and ran up to see how bad he was. He was just sitting up - bleeding from the head (his glasses gouged his eyebrow) hands, ass, elbows, knees.... ect..... And he said "Well - that didn't work".
No shit.
...
