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Brake locking up

penmaker

New Member
Trying to figure out why my rear brake locks up. If the bike sits for a few days the rear brake locks up when I take it out on the road and first use it. I can bleed it and it will work fine after that. I've blown the lines out for trash, use dot 5 fluid, and rebuilt the master cylinder.
 
Think I should go back to dot 4 seeing how it's and older bike then. I'll replace the seals and see what that does for me. Thanks for the advice.
 
Try to ascertain what was in there. It would require dis assembly and cleaning , seals replaced then the DOT 4 installed if you go that route.
 
Before you start tearing into things i had a had a problem like that on my pm rear brake and after alot of work found it to be a little vend hole in the master with the heat it had no way to vent there fore it applied pressure to the rear brakes,jel
 
I just checked the PDF fille on 1966-1984 shovelhead manual

The front of the manual says the following
Brake fluid thru 1975 DOT-3
Brake fluid 1975 on DOT-5

The Brake section for that manual differs slightly. See attached file

I knew those manuals would come in handy

Thanks to Speed for allowing us to download and thanks to those who contributed
 

Attachments

  • brake fluid.bmp
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yep your right, my manuals say to use dot 5 , seeing as how we're suppose to get snow this weekend it'll be a good time to dig into it and see what's going on, thanks for the help everyone.
 
You may also want inspect and clean and inspect the rear caliper and verify guide pins are clean, checking for corrosion or wear of the hardened contact surfaces, relube them with high temp grease. Also before removing the caliper to inspect, use plain water clean the loose road grime first and dry the cleaned unit carefully.

Use a shoe lace dipped in brake fluid to clean the outside of the exposed pistons prior to disassembly, so you do not drive any debris into the bores when spreading the pads/getting them off. The calipers should center directly over the rotor and only a light amount of drag, (swish sound from the pads contacting the rotors) if you are able to elevate bike wheel without interference.

And finally, after any brake work, bleed them in case you got air into the hydralic system. Check before test ride by rolling the bike firmly and make sure braking is crisp, engaging and releasing properly. Don't want to be on the road and not have them stop or lockup.
 
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