Front Brake Squeal

Post by **towerworker** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 6:43 pm

I have 30,000 mi on my 03r. Have had incessant front brake squeal since nearly new. Replaced pads at 16K with Galfer, which are non-metallic pads which I prefer due to less wear on the rotors. I have made all manner of attempts to get rid of the noise from using the "anti-squeal grease" from the auto stores to cleaning and sanding the pads and cleaning the caliper assembly. Nothing works for very long.

The squeal is not a slight noise either--pretty loud unless braking very hard and then it almost goes away.

Wondering if anyone on this board has had similar issues and found a permanent fix?

Wayne

Ivan Koloff · Post by **Ivan Koloff** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 8:02 pm

04. Mine has been doing it from day 1. Never tried to fix it. Thought it would go away when the day comes to replace the pads. I'll keep watching the board for a answer. Thanks for the post .

Sunbeemer · Post by **Sunbeemer** » Sun Mar 25, 2007 10:40 pm

When my (front) brakes start squeaking, I clean them and it goes away (for a while). I have blown the dust out of the calipers with compressed air, but this is ill-advised due to the toxicity of the dust, so I usually rinse the calipers and rotors with a good spray from the hose, and wipe the rotors off with a dry rag. If that doesn't stop the squeal, I wipe the rotors thoroughly with a rag dampened with Brakleen to get any residual grit and dust off. I suspect that different driving conditions will have an impact on how often this is necessary, but for me, it works for about a month.

Sounds like that hasn't worked for you though. Maybe your rotor is too smooth? On a car, I've scratched up a glazed rotor with a stiff (knotted) wire cup-brush on an electric drill (bearing down hard at a medium-slow speed), but I've never tried it on a bike's rotor. Maybe somebody else has?