Rear brake
 

following on from the other rear brake post, what's the solution to keep the bugger working ?

I do use the rear brake when playing in the hairpins in the Alps as I'm generally 2-up and braking hard into the bends, so need as much brakes as I can get and want to save the wrists a bit.

On both the ST4S and the 996 it worked fine until I started to give the bike some stick. I then think the heat off the engine doing lots of high revs low speed work cooked the fluid in the master cylinder.
I suspect the same will happen on the 998 too.

So what is the answer ?
Has anyone managed to keep the rear working ?

I have thought about mounting a lump of hard plastic (Delrin ?) between the master and crank case to help isolate some of the heat in a similar way as it gets used between carbs and barrels. Anyone tried this ?

Any thought gratefully received. :burn:

I've tried using various "insulating" materials between the cylinder and the engine with little success John. The problem is the bolts still transmit the heat........ Have thought about using fibre washers under the cap heads to see if that helps, but haven't had the time of late.
I'm also looking at a brake upgrade using off the shelf bermbo bits. Bigger cylinder and caliper?? Haven't got around to spec' ing it yet though.

The weird thing is though, i've got a couple of bikes that come through here with no probelms at all :puzzled: yet others, mine included go off after a couple of weeks.

good set of pads and dot 6 fluid. does dissapear sometimes but loads better. The exhaust link pipe could be what cooks the fluid.

Thanks guys. So no real solutions as yet.

The st4s is an abs model, so it does have the pump behind the rear cylinder. Front brake is fine though.
It was perfect last year for the first 4kish miles from new until I started doing lots of 1st/2nd gear work in the mountains, then it just went.

The 996 was the same. As good as gold on normal A/B road riding, but get up in the revs in low gears for a while and bye bye rear brake.

I would guess the ST is getting a little warmer than usual as she doesn't use any oil normally, but the mountains can see her use half a litre of oil in a day (300 miles of very twisty stuff).

Nelly, what I was thinking of was to make a plate and bolt the plate to the enging, then use different bolts to mount the cylinder. I know it might offset the lever slightly but has to be worth a shot. Going to try to get some material and give it a shot. If it works I'll report back.

I wedge something (at the moment a lump of coal!) between the pedal and the frame when the bike's not in use, and it keeps the action reasonably firm. They do soon go soggy if unattended, though.

I'm waiting to hear from whoever-it-was who bought a wavey disc the other week, as to whether it's offered much improvement.

AHA !!

Good point !
I brought a wavey disk a while back for my spare back wheel (seem to always end up with a tyre that has not enough tread to last a trip but too good to throw away :) ). Maybe I'll give that a try on the trip at the end of the month, see how it holds up.

Somehow I doubt it'll stop the pedal going soggy though.

Hi all,

Just found this forum and wanted to let you know that the wave rotor was designed to keep your brake components cooler, however the issue at hand for the Ducati tends to be the amount of heat from the pipes and not the disc.

True the wave rotor runs cooler then OEM due to the design of the wave - it causes the brakes to get cool air in between the wave surface. Some of things that you can do is consider ceramic coating the inside of your pipes, Dot 5.1 brake fluid with a high dry boiling point, better brake pads, heat shielding of any kind to help deflect the heat.