Interesting issue, forgive its longwindedness but I find it somewhat disturbing...
I took my old man's '07 Fatboy to the local mechanic to have the rear tire and brakes changed. When it came time to replace the pads, we noticed that the replacement pads spec'd in the book were slightly different than the ones in the bike; the tabs that hold the pads in place were somewhat bigger on the new pads.
I went to the local dealer to get Harley pads, and found them to be identical to the EBC pads the mechanic had. I took both back to the dealer, and spoke to the parts department manager. He too had no idea why the pads spec'd were different than those in the bike (the original pads, 12,000 miles on the bike) and asked the service tech. The tech proceeded to tell me that there was a small lot of bikes made in 2007 that took those original pads, and that those pads were discontinued. He went on to tell me that when confronted with this issue, they grind the tabs on the new pads down to fit, and suggested I do the same.
Essentially, the Harley Davidson mechanic told me to modify brake parts, HD brake parts mind you, to fit on a stock HD bike, having no concern that someone might do this wrong and have a rear brake bind or fail.
Has anyone else seen this, or do I have a particularly rare rear caliper? I'm considering contacting the MOCO to find out how they can allow this to continue.
I took my old man's '07 Fatboy to the local mechanic to have the rear tire and brakes changed. When it came time to replace the pads, we noticed that the replacement pads spec'd in the book were slightly different than the ones in the bike; the tabs that hold the pads in place were somewhat bigger on the new pads.
I went to the local dealer to get Harley pads, and found them to be identical to the EBC pads the mechanic had. I took both back to the dealer, and spoke to the parts department manager. He too had no idea why the pads spec'd were different than those in the bike (the original pads, 12,000 miles on the bike) and asked the service tech. The tech proceeded to tell me that there was a small lot of bikes made in 2007 that took those original pads, and that those pads were discontinued. He went on to tell me that when confronted with this issue, they grind the tabs on the new pads down to fit, and suggested I do the same.
Essentially, the Harley Davidson mechanic told me to modify brake parts, HD brake parts mind you, to fit on a stock HD bike, having no concern that someone might do this wrong and have a rear brake bind or fail.
Has anyone else seen this, or do I have a particularly rare rear caliper? I'm considering contacting the MOCO to find out how they can allow this to continue.
