Burnishing Brake Pads

Anyone know the right way to burnish pads? Info on the net is all over the place. One you tube vid is obviously wrong.

 

Do you mean "bedding" them in? If you do here's some good info. When you bed in brakes you are taking material of the pad and embedding it in to the rotor. To do this right take some fine emery or wet/dry paper and scuff both sides of the rotor to clean any old brake particles off.

Once on the road ride about 30mph and then apply the brakes as hard as you dare quickly till you almost stop. Release and continue on and do it again. Then ride a mile or so to let the parts cool. Repeat again another two times. Let cool then do it one more time.

This will transfer brake particles in to the rotor which help the pads grab. The reason you do not want to get them real hot is you could glaze the pad surface. Then you would have to take the pads off and run over emery on a FLAT surface, clean the rotor and start all over. Most good race pads will come with instructions for bedding. If your still in doubt go straight to the manufactures site for bedding info.

 

Heat cycles is the "key-word" here. Get them hot, let them cool, and repeat. Its not rocket science, they could glaze and if that happens you could do figure 8s with them on a piece of nice concrete or if you have a nice piece of marble use 220 with the figure 8s. I have had problems in the past with some EBC pads and the doode made the analogy about baking cookies, sometimes a batch comes oot screwed up. He sent me a new pair and all was well with the world, this was many moons ago though. EBC is dah Schizzle. :vtr2:

 

Those sound right but I've read a few pages that call for lighter braking. All say to get off the brakes and let them cool before you apply them again.

 

30 30 30. 30 stops from 30mph with 30 seconds of cooling. Keep the stops fairly normal to build heat but not too much. This helps cure the adhesive in the pads and prevent glazing in the future.

Just a general rule with cars. You don't have to do all 30 stops but that is what is optimal.


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I'll just post the link to EBC and their recommendation for bedding in their pads.

http://ebcbrakes.com/articles/bedding-in-new-motorcycle-pads-and-rotors/

I think they know what to do.

 

Good find, thanks Lint

 

Polaris atv and motorcycle butnishing procedure is similar..6 cycles

 

Different pads require different ways to bed them in. That's why I mentioned go to the mfg to see what they recommend.
I can't help also thinking, because the general public doesn't think, they, EBC, don't want anybody locking the front brakes and going down. Might cause a few law suites.

One thing you don't want to do is ride the brakes and or get them real hot in the first few uses.

 

Yes, yes you did.:usa2:

(I have no problem locking up the fronts. I thought everybody did that....)

 

"Info on the net is all over the place."

Take the advice of the wise one's here....refer to the manufacturer. When motoGP bikes have brake problems, they don't ask for assistance from the web o' sphere.

 

I have as usual read some things that are accurate and a number of them that are not in this post. I thought I would share with you all accurate information regarding new pad break in procedures.

For starters the break in procedure for new brake pads is virtually identical between all of the major brake pad suppliers in this market. That would include Braking, DP Brakes, EBC Brakes, Ferodo (Yes they are still around), Galfer, Performance Friction (Primarily really race pads), SBS, and Vesrah. There is Lyndall but they primarily cater to the V-Twin market. First off, “NONE” of these companies make their brake pads in China so I thought I would just take care of that. The only one that makes pads in the USA is EBC’s sintered compound brake pads. Their Organic compounds are made in the UK as are DP Brakes sintered pads. All of the companies listed above make top quality product and they stand behind it. Usually the differences are in their sintered pads. Things like how much initial bite and how well they maintain their feel when they are really hot. (Things like feeling the leaver pull back to the bar more or not)

All of these companies will tell you that ideally if you are installing a new set of their brake pads on your bike and they are different from what you had, the best thing you can do is to get your “Rotor Blade” surface glass beaded. The rotor blade surface is the outer part of your brake rotors that the pads squeeze on to stop you. The reason is as was mentioned above that it gets rid of both all of whatever other brake compound you were using from the surface. It will also get rid of most other contaminents that might be on them. Back in the days of Honda racing their CBR600F2,3,4 bikes they would put the rotors in a glassbead cabinet after every race weekend. For both better pad grip with fresh pads, but also because they found it helped to slightly re-harden the rotor surface and they needed that on those bikes. Make sure to use your favorite brake cleaner to clean those rotors down.

Most of us do not have a glassbead cabinet at home in the garage to use. The next best option would be a “Rotor Hone” You can buy them at a NAPA store for about $35. They come in 3 grits: Course, Medium, and Fine. To do this you will need to take the rotors off of your bike and lay them flat on a work bench. Then take the drill and rotor hone and work your way around your rotors doing one side then the other. Clean them off with your favorite brake cleaner. These rotor hones are about 3” across and are flat with all of the little hone beads on the flat bottom of it. Pay attention that the directions tell you to not spin them I think up over 600rpm. If you do, watch out as it is possible for the little hone beads to come flying off of it. If you have a rotor that is lightly scored, a lot of the time these hones can help take some of that away with the coarser grit. But they will not help a badly scored rotor. The other thing about the rotor hone is that it will leave a “Non-Directional” finish on the rotor blade. That is important. All the years I was dealing with roadracers I highly recommended they get one of these rotor hones and keep it in their tool box.

The next thing in line that you can do in a pinch is as was mentioned above use emery cloth or a scotchbright pad in a “Circular” motion in the rotor blade to try and get what you can off of it. People have been doing this for many years and it will help. It is simply not as effective the other two methods.

Doing the above procedure is the best thing you can do to prepare your rotors for those new pads. You will need to heat cycle any new pads as you bed that new pad material into your rotors. But if you cleaned the rotors as above it will be a pretty quick process. The process is the same whether or not you are going to organic, ceramic, sintered, or carbon pads.

For those that are simply replacing their old pads with a new pair of the same and you don’t clean the rotors the bed in procedure is the same. Simply heat cycle the pads for light and medium hard stops over a distance and you will be fine.

I very strongly urge that anybody putting in new brake pads change their brake fluid as well. It is a super cheap investment in maintaining your brakes. I would also suggest that those of us with VF’s or VFR’s also change the clutch fluid as well. Just a suggestion.

Deciding on pad type for different rotor material is a different discussion. For another thread.

I hope that this explains a little better the differences and why’s to get the best out of your brake pads. Brakes on a motorcycle are nowhere to chinz out and not spend money.

If somebody has other questions let me know.

Gotta go,

 

Great write up, thanks.

How about describing the "simply heat cycle"?

 

Killer write up! :thumbsup: i have access to a glasss bead cabinet now, we replaced the beads recently too. I have one of those brake hone tools which you use on your electric drill which work well on some of the cars i have had the misfortune to work on :loco: thanks again for the far out write up. Cheers

 

First, as was suggested earlier here if you want the last word for both the brand and the compound of your pads check out the manufacturer’s web site for what they say.

I think that a couple of others suggested above ways that will work ok. Simply heat cycling is really most important if you are running and older bike and using organic pads. I believe that most manufacturers will say that is getting the pads hot over a certain amount of miles gets them hot and lets them cool.(I would think that 10-20 times slowing down progressively harder) In Organic pads that helps with the curing of the pad compound. It has nothing to do with the Glue to keep the pad material stuck to the backer plate. For the last several years both EBC and SBS brake companies have used the NRS System (A large series of small hooks on the steel backer plate) to help hold pad materials in place.

Breaking in any new pads is important because it takes time for you new pad material to form to any imperfections that might be in the rotor surface. Sintered pads are a harder material and it will take them a little longer to bed them in. I will tell you that all of these brake manufactures that I mentioned actually recommend a longer distance for proper bedding in. They will be saying a couple of hundred miles before the best results can be attained. At the race track using sintered pads you can generally break in new pads with progressively harder stops in 2-4 laps. I have known a number of top AMA Superbike racers who would have new pads fitted for their race and bed them on the sighting lap for the race. Of course they were not changing pad compounds just fitting fresh pads. Street riding I would myself use 15-20 usages of the brakes slowing from 60mph or so down to a 10 or 15mph speed. But that is just myself.

I just want to say that whether you glass bead your rotors or use a rotor hone, you are giving your new pads both a much better surface to bed into but also speeding up that process.

Hope that answers the "simply cycle the pads" question better. AGAIN: if you want the best info check that manufacturer’s web site.

The biggest deal is getting the pads to wear into the rotors and match up with any irregularities like I said earlier.