Ok so lets have a crack at this tutorial thing.
I am going to be talking about how to make sure you get the most out of your brakes, well more to the point that your disc rotors are the correct ones for your bike. Don't presume that because the bike came with them that they are correct. I may add a section at a later date on how to bleed brakes.
The bike I will be referring to in this tutorial is my 2008 Pitpro XR140.
So to make sure your disc rotors are the correct size for your bike the best and most accurate way is to look at your brake pads after a little bit of riding (won't be able to see when they are brand new). On my pitpro I found the rear pads to be worn correctly and across the whole face of the pad. Not so with the front pads. They looked like this
http://www.miniriders.com.au/forum/v...1&d=1192368107
as you can see the top 5mm of the pad is being unused. You will also find the disc to look something like this
http://www.miniriders.com.au/forum/v...2&d=1192368121
you will notice that the wear pattern on the disc stop where the main part of the rotor stops. To use the full pad it will normally extend down onto the bracings about 5mm.
So what you want to do is get out the old ruler and measure the current rotor size and also how much of the pad is unused. In my case it had a 190mm rotor and 5mm unused of pad. To work out what size rotor you should have you will need to double the amount of unused pad + the original rotor size. Meaning mine was
2 x 5mm = 10mm
10mm + 190mm = 200mm disc needed
I found my rotor on ebay but some of the sponsors may have something to suit. So get the correct size rotor, my 200mm rotor looked like this
http://www.miniriders.com.au/forum/v...3&d=1192368135
and when you place the 2 rotors together with a used pad you can see the difference
http://www.miniriders.com.au/forum/v...6&d=1192368215
as you will notice with mine that the unused part of the pad will now be used. Its quite a simple process to change the disc rotors over and once you take your wheel off all you will need is a 6mm allen key and some locktight if you have some. Undo the 4 bolts and remove old rotor, clean new rotor with brake clean if you have some otherwise the brakes work poorly until the rotor is good and clean. Place new rotor on and replace the 4 bolts using some locktight. Should look similar to
http://www.miniriders.com.au/forum/v...5&d=1192368213
Then throw your wheel back on. Depending on the condition of your pads you may need to sand / file the pads flat again as if they are heavily used they will have a bad lip on the top of the pad that will adversely affect your braking. If they are really bad you may as well replace them. Mine only had a couple of hours riding but still had a lip. So thats pretty much it, will help get the most out of your brake setup.
So just as a recap the Pitpro XR140 2008 models need a 199mm front rotor instead of the 190mm rotor they come stock with. This mod should cost under $30 and take about 1/2 to do.
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