Bedding in new brakes

[jamestnewsonr65]

I have recently replaced the rotors and pads for the dual front disks and the rear drum pads.

My question is what is the best way to bed these in to ensure that they perform correctly. I can't seem to find any of the info on the EBC site as I just get 404 errors on the pages.

[Luca]

On a quiet stretch of road give your bike a number of strong "rolling stops."  That is to say, brake firmly from about 50mph to 5mph, release, accelerate back up to 50mph; rinse and repeat.

With nice new rotors the front should set in pretty quickly, as there won't be many contours that the pads will need to mate with.

For the rear I have stood on the brake for short stretches while driving down the road, since that way the brake is working against the engine and I can get some pretty firm pressure in there without locking the rear wheel up.

The drums seem to wear pretty smoothly... the big thing is just getting the radii of the drum and shoes to match, although honestly they're less fussy than the fronts and once the rear wheel can lock up you don't need more brakes back there IMO

[montmil]

On a quiet stretch of road give your bike a number of strong "rolling stops."  That is to say, brake firmly from about 50mph to 5mph, release, accelerate back up to 50mph; rinse and repeat.

With nice new rotors the front should set in pretty quickly, as there won't be many contours that the pads will need to mate with.

Actually, I believe 40mph is plenty fast enough, and safer, to do the "pad bedding" drills. With new pads and rotors, you might actually score a stoppie should the new front brake bits decide to really grab! Wear your Go-Pro for us.  

Allow some brake cool-down time after 2-3 firm front brake only stops. And understand it may be up to one-hundred miles before everyone is playing nicely together. Probably shorter than that with your new rotors but this is true when going with new pads only.

[nhmaf]

+1 to the above - don't "baby" them, as that will just tend to promote surface glazing on the high spots and not bed them down.   Also consider that you braking power is not as good as it will eventually become and plan accordingly in your choice of road and speed.

Because of the nature of the process - highly advised to find a quiet, lonely, little used back road with some straight stretches in it that is seldom patrolled by the cops.    A typical police officer will probably not understand/believe what you are doing if he sees it.

[Tony Smith]

A typical police officer will probably not understand/believe what you are doing if he sees it.

Yes.....The one that stopped me when I was doing a little brake bedding on the XT last year was so intrigued by the whole process that he plumb failed to notice that it wasn't registered. You have to be lucky sometimes.
 
In relation to that, my XT is quite possibly the very last model trail bike sold out of Japan with a drum front brake. Finding shoes for it has always been a chore, they are the same diameter as the rear, but wider. I have always simply used rear shoes.
 
Last year I found a shop in Japan that had NOS of the correct front shoes. I bought two sets. When I fitted them there was the small matter of the "hump" where the brake drum had not seen a show since about 1989... Hence the very vigorous "bedding-in" procedure that got the drum hot enough to be smoking the random bits of grease and oil. Anyway, the copper was initially skeptical but we ended up having a bit of a chat about motorcycles in general for a few minutes and then he was on his way. I started breathing again as he turned the corner - the costs of being pinged riding an unregistered motorcycle is a bit severe here.

[Luca]

highly advised to find a quiet, lonely, little used back road with some straight stretches in it that is seldom patrolled by the cops.    A typical police officer will probably not understand/believe what you are doing if he sees it.

Funny story... I once gave all four calipers on my dearly missed '77 Mercedes Benz 240D fresh pads.  I did the work at my brothers house, who lives along the edge of Roger Williams State Park.  There's a straight stretch of road there in the park that goes past the tennis courts--just perfect for bedding in brakes.

Now the Benz's lusty 2.4l diesel put out a whopping 67-1/2hp, though true clydesdales coming from an asphalt crinkling 101lbft of torque.  Getting the car to any reasonable speed in a somewhat reasonable distance required fairly "unreasonable" use of the accelerator, a phenomenon made audibly known to every  half-deaf dog, LEO, and frightened child within a half mile radius.

Sure enough, a cop was parked at the tennis courts as is usual, so I pulled up alongside him and explained what I wanted to do before I got to the bedding in process.  After a quick reassurance that I wouldn't kill anybody, I had my stretch of road sanctioned by Johnny Law, whom I presume went back to playing the game of solitaire that was taking up the screen of his onboard laptop.