Alternative rear brake master cylinder?
 

Anyone sucessfully fitted an alternative master cylinder to the rear brake that actually works?

I know you all gonna whine " I don't use the rear brake", but some of us do, particularly on track.

Anyone?

I'm guessing this is because of bleeding problems and the rear brake going soft?

I swear it's a design fault with the underslung rear caliper. The rear brake on the 600ss is exactly the same setup, but the caliper sits above the rear axle - and it doesn't go soft! Dunno how easy it would be to change it though...

BTW, have you still got the m/c mounting bracket I lent you ages ago? ;)

if you have the dosh get a thumb operated one.
works for shakey

Nelly still has it. Cos it was the wrong bit I never actually got round to picking it up. Will prob see him so will ask.

Thats what I would like, but they ain't half a lot of dosh

I had one of the Harris Performance Billet items on my Magnum 4 that always worked well but not sure if they are still available

Might have some thumb brakes made, wonder if there would be the interest?

....Tease! :D

Seriously, if there is enough interest I will make some. Will start a thread

Don't know if that's it. The other major difference is that the exhaust is nowhere near the brake line of master cylinder. I think it was Nelly who first suspected that the problem might be heat related. It would be more likely then the position of the rear caliper. By the way, the RS bike don't seem to suffer from this nearly as much, but then they use a different rear caliper.

It would be an interesting experiment and a fairly easy one to do, to apply some of the self-adhesive heat shielding and apply it to the brake line and the master cylinder to see if that makes any difference.

Shazaam has discussed it at length I think, so might be worth searching for his posts on the subject.

I realised that the SS also has a vertically mounted m/c rather than the horizontally slung one (which is also right next to the engine) on the 916 style. This might also be a factor?

Interesting to see that Ducati have gone back to the rear caliper above the rear axle for the 999, but kept the horizontal m/c. Do these suffer the same, and if they don't does this mean that Ducati knew and changed the design accordingly?

[Edited on 26-10-2005 by antonye]

No worries - as I said at the time it was spare anyway as I had broken mine and ordered one from the local dealer, but they had a big delay in their orders so I ended up getting one off Nattyboy in the end I think (or ebay or similar) as I needed it for the MOT. Of course, the one then turned up at the dealer after I needed it and I had already paid for it...

I have posted about this before,

When the rear brake pedal is depressed, you can see the rear master cylinder move away from the pedal. I swear that it moves a good 2 or 3 mm.
I think its the rear bracket that holds the rear master cylinder. Its too weak. That and the fact that its near to the exhaust etc etc.
Now all I have to do is get around to making a decent bracket and testing it.;) Either that or my one is a duffer. Saying that though, my rear brake is ok. I bleed it about every 6 months.

Ho hum.

I havent needed to bleed my rear brake in the three years i have owned the bike. I've got a nice firm pedal, no trouble at all. The brake just doesnt do much even so.

Dallas had ISR stuff on a couple of his specials, real nice kit, some guy called Eddie Lawson use to swear by the product

http://www.isr-brakes.se/products/ma...s/21-010.shtml

I did 4500 on my 748s and the rear brake worked just as well as any honda i had before could lock it or just drag it abit to brush off speed on wet corners. I think it maybe due to using it a lot slow speed during commuting nealry every day.

On the S4r i have now the caliper is in the same position looks to be the same caliper to. but the master cylinder is away from the engine and at a 45 degree angle and it works very well:o:o