Vaquero Rear Brake Problem

[ndsailor1]

I have a 2011 Vaquero with 17,000 miles on her. There is a scraping noise coming from the rear brake, particularly noticable at 30 mph....scrape..scrape...scrape ...scrape....Disappears when I turn side to side, and disappears when I apply the brake, until I reease the brake pedal. The brake pedal does not pulse when the brake is applied. My local repair shop replaced the pads today, but the problem still exists....anyone else experience this problem? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. The Kawasaki shop says to get louder pipes and I won't notice the problem anymore....not right.

[ringadingh]

See if a small stone is wedged in the caliper, although if the dealer replaced the pads they should have found it, also make sure that the caliper bolts are tight on the mount. You should be able to see where it scrapes if you turn the wheel by hand on a jack.

[Tynker]

Check your belt for stones. Also check the belt alignment.

[Boscoe]

Check your wheel bearings too.

[ndsailor1]

Techs say the rear rotor needs to be replaced...new one will be in next Thursday, will keep all updated whether this works or not.

[dshelly]

Techs say the rear rotor needs to be replaced...new one will be in next Thursday, will keep all updated whether this works or not.

I highly doubt that..... pull your bag off and post some pics. probabbly just your pads. Pads are waaay cheaper that rotors.

[Peg]

When I described a similar sound in my front wheel to the tech at my local Kaw shop... and occasional pulsing in the brake lever - He quietly told me the "trade-trick" is to lift the wheel, determine through spinning it which side is touching, and exactly where (inside or outside) - and then give it a decent whack inwards with a rubber mallet or a tweak outwards with a long crescent wrench.

Take that as it's offered... I took it as another good reason not to take my bike there.

I didn't have to do it anyway... When I removed the wheel and then re-installed it with a new tire, I took both rotor's off, cleaned them both up at the mounts, and then torqued them back down to spec using red loctite on the bolts. Whatever was slightly out of kilter before that, was completely eliminated. No more scrape... scrape... scrape... No more pulsing.

New rotor's are not cheap though - so even the whack or tweak might be worth a shot?

When I had my rotor's off I took them to a local engineer who specializes in car rotors to see if he could reface them. He was extremely leery of bike rotors... Made of much harder metal he told me, and much thinner than car rotors - very very hard with the equipment he had to take anything off the surface except one side at a time on a (hopefully) flat surface with a milling machine, which exposes a risk of bending or warping it or having unequal thickness across the rotor, and no absolutely no guarantee of success. He said he'd had as many failures as successes, so it would be at my risk. Fortunately the clean and remount fixed the problem, so I didn't have to go any further down that track.

[ndsailor1]

I highly doubt that..... pull your bag off and post some pics. probabbly just your pads. Pads are waaay cheaper that rotors.

Pads have already been replaced with no relief from the problem.

[ndsailor1]

UPDATE: So my Kawasaki Dealer replaced the rotor...no charge...scraping noise is still present. Damn it! At least it hasn't cost me anything .... yet. Noise is really noticable at around 35 mph, no noise whenever i lean ever so slightly to one side or the other.

[smokey]

UPDATE: So my Kawasaki Dealer replaced the rotor...no charge...scraping noise is still present. Damn it! At least it hasn't cost me anything .... yet. Noise is really noticable at around 35 mph, no noise whenever i lean ever so slightly to one side or the other. if it is scraping then obviously something is out of alignment, I wonder if could be the caliper itself is rubbing on the inside against the rotor? easy enough to take off the caliper and just check to see if there are any wear marks up on the inside. Another place may be the rear cable for the brake, or other part slightly out of alignment and rubbing against something.

By the way if a tech told me to get a louder exhaust so I wouldn't hear the sound, I would be getting a better tech so I wouldn't hear the one that said that.

Also one thing you can do yourself is get a jack, jack the rear wheal off the ground and slowly spin the rear wheal while listening closely, you should be able to at least pinpoint where the noise is coming from and go from there.

[Snake Ranch]

I have a 2011 Vaquero with 17,000 miles on her. There is a scraping noise coming from the rear brake, particularly noticable at 30 mph....scrape..scrape...scrape ...scrape....Disappears when I turn side to side, and disappears when I apply the brake, until I reease the brake pedal. The brake pedal does not pulse when the brake is applied. My local repair shop replaced the pads today, but the problem still exists....anyone else experience this problem? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. The Kawasaki shop says to get louder pipes and I won't notice the problem anymore....not right.

Check for air in the brake fluid. A little air could be preventing the brake pistons from retracting like they should, allowing a pad to drag.

[ponch]

It wouldn't be too hard to jack it up when on a lift and run the bike in gear so as to hear wear the noise is coming from.

[smokey]

It wouldn't be too hard to jack it up when on a lift and run the bike in gear so as to hear wear the noise is coming from.

You shouldn't run the bike in gear while it is jacked up, apart from the obvious danger, the sound of the motor may mask any noise and make it harder to pinpoint where it is coming from.

[ponch]

You shouldn't run the bike in gear while it is jacked up, apart from the obvious danger, the sound of the motor may mask any noise and make it harder to pinpoint where it is coming from.

Mask it? Like you can tell from riding it? As long as the bike is secured properly, it shouldn't be a problem. With a modified stethoscope, the sound could be located and may be even without as the sound could be at ear level instead of below ass level.

[smokey]

Mask it? Like you can tell from riding it? As long as the bike is secured properly, it shouldn't be a problem. With a modified stethoscope, the sound could be located and may be even without as the sound could be at ear level instead of below ass level.

Hey you want to run it in gear on a stand you fill your boots, I will let the guy know who lost two fingers when they got amputated by the chain. It is not just the bike running you have to worry about if you have your ear close to the wheel with it rotating while trying hard to pinpoint a sound while your stethoscope, long hair, whatever gets caught up in something. I always prefer safety over lost fingers or worse. :tup:

[ponch]

Hey you want to run it in gear on a stand you fill your boots, I will let the guy know who lost two fingers when they got amputated by the chain. It is not just the bike running you have to worry about if you have your ear close to the wheel with it rotating while trying hard to pinpoint a sound while your stethoscope, long hair, whatever gets caught up in something. I always prefer safety over lost fingers or worse. :tup:

A vaquero doesn't have a chain and I don't have long hair and the tube that I'd use on the stethoscope would keep my fingers away from moving parts. Safety is about mitigating risks as they can't be eliminated.

[ndsailor1]

Check for air in the brake fluid. A little air could be preventing the brake pistons from retracting like they should, allowing a pad to drag.

I like this suggestion, it seems like when I use the rear brake I have to depress the pedal a bit too far....Going to check on this one.

[27vulcan]

I thought i needed to replace the pads on my voyager because of scraping noises. When I went to replace them I discovered they were still good! Cleaned the pads and rotors with brake clean and so far so good. When I returned the pads to my dealer the parts guy knew what the deal was right away. " Just needed some brake clean huh? " Seems the metallic pads are noisy.

[Myklops]

Check for air in the brake fluid. A little air could be preventing the brake pistons from retracting like they should, allowing a pad to drag.

The square-cut seal on the caliper pistons causes them to retract following application. Air in the hydraulics would have no effect on piston retraction.

[Mr-Grimm]

If the noise is loud enough to hear over wind, road and exhaust going down the road, jacking it up and slowly rotating the wheel should tell you where the noise is without starting the bike.