Thursday night while backing out of a friends driveway with my bike not running, i hear the rear brake dragging/grinding a little. Popped off the right saddlebag to have a look see. Yup time for rear brakes as the pads couldnt of had more than a 16th of an inch left on em. Now thats getting your monies worth
Friday after work i stop and get a set of pads and begin changing them. Compressed the inner pistons and removed the inner pad. As i'm attempting to insert the new pad i'm struggling to get it to go in and seems like a real tight fit. I stick a small wonder bar in between the caliper and rotor to make sure the pistons are fully compressed and notice some wiggle in the whole wheel assembly. This cant be right so i grab the wheel in the 3 and 9 position and holy shmoykies its clunking side to side at least a quarter inch. Rotor side bearing is wasted. Pull everything apart and take the wheel off and find i had a large nail in the tire that i hadnt seen with the head completely worn off. Tire was about due to be changed anyway and I had a brand new Michelin Commander sitting in the shop and took it to my local indy. New bearings, mount and balance and out the door for $160. He asked me how i couldnt have noticed the rear bearing problem and i told him i honestly didnt feel any ill handling problems and frequently commute to work with 80 mph speeds and several sweeping corners along the route. No shimmys or feelings of the rear end dancing around at all. Just an occasional minor squirrel feeling if i hit some tar snakes or grooved pavement which i'm used to and consider normal. I really can't believe i missed something like the bearing and even the nail since i am so meticulous with my bikes. Rear bearing felt fine when i got the bike in Feb and gave it a thorough inspection. Ive put 4500 miles on it and know some bearings sometimes go out in less mileage if cheaply made. Thank God for watching out for me. Dont wanna think of the possibilities of that bearing disintegrating at highway speed during a ride with the Mrs or commute.
Friday after work i stop and get a set of pads and begin changing them. Compressed the inner pistons and removed the inner pad. As i'm attempting to insert the new pad i'm struggling to get it to go in and seems like a real tight fit. I stick a small wonder bar in between the caliper and rotor to make sure the pistons are fully compressed and notice some wiggle in the whole wheel assembly. This cant be right so i grab the wheel in the 3 and 9 position and holy shmoykies its clunking side to side at least a quarter inch. Rotor side bearing is wasted. Pull everything apart and take the wheel off and find i had a large nail in the tire that i hadnt seen with the head completely worn off. Tire was about due to be changed anyway and I had a brand new Michelin Commander sitting in the shop and took it to my local indy. New bearings, mount and balance and out the door for $160. He asked me how i couldnt have noticed the rear bearing problem and i told him i honestly didnt feel any ill handling problems and frequently commute to work with 80 mph speeds and several sweeping corners along the route. No shimmys or feelings of the rear end dancing around at all. Just an occasional minor squirrel feeling if i hit some tar snakes or grooved pavement which i'm used to and consider normal. I really can't believe i missed something like the bearing and even the nail since i am so meticulous with my bikes. Rear bearing felt fine when i got the bike in Feb and gave it a thorough inspection. Ive put 4500 miles on it and know some bearings sometimes go out in less mileage if cheaply made. Thank God for watching out for me. Dont wanna think of the possibilities of that bearing disintegrating at highway speed during a ride with the Mrs or commute.
