Return-Path: Posted-Date: 19 Oct 92 02:01:40 GMT Path: taco!gatech!darwin.sura.net!haven.umd.edu!mimsy!leavitt From: leavitt@cs.umd.edu (Mr. Bill) Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles Subject: Belated Ride Report (sort of) Date: 19 Oct 92 02:01:40 GMT Sender: news@MIMSY.CS.UMD.EDU Organization: The Cafe at the Edge of the Universe Lines: 62 Apparently-To: sasmjw@unx.sas.com As long as I'm writing ride reports, I'll catch up on some old business. After the RCR, a ride report was posted by Steve Andersen, which included this excerpt: +--- |From: andersen@me.udel.edu (Stephen Andersen) |Subject: RCR Ride Report and Ducati touring impressions |Message-ID: |Date: 31 Jul 92 19:42:53 GMT | | I was quite disappointed at how early everyone left on Sunday |morning to head home. By about 9 AM the only ones left were myself, Jen, |Ian, and Mr. Bill. We spent a relaxing day riding into Wilkesboro, fixing |Mr. Bill's brakes with Duct tape, carbon fiber kickstand pads, and wire, |^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ +--- A fair number of people wrote me asking for details. A few got them, most were told I'd give more details in my ride report. Well, that never got written and is old news anyway, but I thought I'd tell this tale. Around noon on Sunday, Steve, Jen, Ian and I all headed off for Wilkesboro to get various supplies and lunch, amongst other things. As we approached a stop light, I hit my brakes and heard that dreadful *screeech* that indicated that one of my brake pads had just gone to the great beyond. The deceased pad was on the right front caliper, inside pad. The baseplate metal was exposed at the side near the axle. That's what I get for doing a quickie inspection of the pads with the calipers mounted, instead of pulling them, as I usually do before a long roadtrip. Live and learn... The first question was where we might find brake pads for an '82 GS850 in the middle of North Carolina on a Sunday afternoon. This was very quickly dismissed as purely rhetorical. The second question was how to bubblegum the system well enough to get the bike ambulatory again. After some brainstorming and head scratching, we finally arrived at the following solution: The brake caliper was rotated 180 degrees about on it's hose and mounted backwards on the outside of the fork. One mounting bolt was able to be worked through some cutouts in the disk, through the fork mounting hole and into the threaded hole in the caliper. The other hole wouldn't come into proper alignment and access was blocked by the disk rotor, so some 18ga electrical wire served as impromptu safety wire. There was still the problem of supporting the brake pads if I wanted to be able to use the other front brake, which I did. One of the souvenirs of the RCR was carbon-fibre kickstand pads, provided by Messrs. Howie and Andersen. While their supply was exhausted, we each still had our personal pads. These were unceremoniously stuffed into the caliper and held in place with several wraps of duct tape. After a few test squeezes and a gentle test ride about the parking lot, we were back on our way. The fix worked fine, the rotor was undamaged, and I was able to ride the bike the 400+ miles back home the next day, tho' the first few hard braking opportunities with a fully-loaded Suzibago were rather interesting... 8^) Mr. Bill -- Bill Leavitt DoD: #224 Domain: leavitt@cs.umd.edu UUCP: uunet!mimsy!leavitt "Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate and captain of your soul."