Rear Brake Upgrade & Polishing

I had a little "accident" over the 4th of July weekend where the seal on my oil filter blew out spewing oil all over the right side of the bike and ruining the brake pads. So, I figured now was as good a time as any to upgrade the brakes to the two-piston rears used on the later model Classics and Nomads. I picked up the parts off e-bay for under $100. The caliper and bracket are from a 2001 FI Nomad and the rotor from a 2000 carb'd Nomad.


Here is the Nomad FI caliper as received. They're kind of dull, if you ask me. :-) I'm only going to polish some accents on this, like the flats on the top, the "Tokiko" side part and the bulbous protrusion at the front.



Here's the caliper mounting bracket for the FI Nomad. This is a fairly rough casting, but is an easy candidate for polishing.


I don't have any photos of the rotor before I started working on it. It was just a tad rusty, but the worst part was it had a strip of packaging tape wrapped around it three times. This was difficult to remove and left a sticky mess and raised area on the rotor. I had to sand this crap off as nothing I used really worked well. That's when I got the idea to paint the rotor. Soooo.....

I started by masking off the wear area of the rotor. Then I manually trimmed the tape away to reveal the center section. A rattle can of primer start the process.

I followed the primer up with two coats of the Kawasaki white base, two coats of Kawasaki pearl white, then two coats of Krylon reflective clear. This gives it a brilliant white and adds to the side visibility of the bike. This photo was after the first base color coat.

This photo shows the difference in size between the D1 rotor and the later model rotors. The bolt pattern is the same - the D1 almost looks like it's a "universal fit" rotor with all the excess holes. When I first considered this change, I bought just the caliper and mount. When I tried to install them, the brake pads were barely going to touch the rotor - right at the edge. That's when I started looking for this rotor.

I start by wet sanding with 60 grit, then 100, 220, 400 and 600 grit sandpaper. Each layer must remove the previous steps sanding marks. I usually sand away while watching TV. Just be careful you don't spill any water on the carpet - the aluminum dust will stain!!

After sanding, the buffing starts. Here I'm polishing the top fins of the caliper using a spiral sewn buff and a tripoli (brown) compound. This really knocks out most remaining scratches and adds a nice shine.

Here is the caliper after the initial polish.

Here is the bracket.

Here are the parts after polishing with White Rouge and a loose sewn buff. Starting to look good!

Here are the same parts after using Blizzard White and a canton flannel buff.

Warning, polishing makes a mess! The lint from the buffs gets everywhere. Wear a mask when you do this or you'll be sneezing this gook for days.

Now on to the installation!

First, I removed the caliper. Take care when expanding the pads. If you press too hard or too quickly, you can damage the seals on the master cylinder. Slow and careful is the rule here. BTW, I was caught in a rain storm the night before, so the bike is a tad dirty - all the better to see the new shiny parts!

The caliper bracket is held by the axle and a stabilizing screw. I use a ratcheting wrench to loosen this screw. About half way out, I had to remove the wrench or it would've got pinned between the pipes and the swing arm and I would not be able to remove the bracket.

The rear axle nut is 24mm, but that's a hard wrench to find. Sockets are fairly easy to find, there isn't enough room to fit a socket and breaker bar between the muffler and swing arm. The book says to remove the exhaust when removing the rear tire. A 15" adjustable wrench does the job just fine and is cheaper than a 24mm combination wrench. When tightening, remove the rear passenger peg bracket (two allen screws) and lightly pull the pipes out to allow access for a torque wrench and socket. Or, if you're familiar with how tight it should be, use the adjustable wrench again. Remember, this nut is pinned with a cotter pin.

With the bracket ready for removal, I loosened the screws holding the rotor in place.

Here is the new rotor in place. You can see the reflective qualities in the clear - this should help my side profile at night without having the gaudy reflectors.

Now install the bracket. Notice the reflection! There's something about polished aluminum that appeals to me. You just buy chrome, but polishing takes effort and commitment.

Then install the caliper. Man, this is looking good!

Before installing the brake line, I wrapped the rotor with a rag. I didn't want any brake fluid getting on the paint and ruining it before I could even ride the bike. I've had that happen before and it sucks!!

The brakes now work better than ever and should really help when pulling my trailer. Now I hope I don't have any more oil issues.

After getting everything plumbed up and bled, I decided to clean up some of my old polished parts. During the winter of 03, I polished a bunch of stuff on Ghost. This final drive at one time had a mirror finish, but 30-40,000 of miles and assorted washings and lack of washings have taken their toll. I was really afraid that this would take a long time to clean up, but it actually didn't. I used a conical buff mounted on an electric drill and White Rouge.

Here is the same drive after polishing. It looks a lot better in person than I can capture with the camera. This took about an hour to re-polish, not bad considering the size of this. When I did the initial polishing, it took me about 8 to 10 hours on the buffer alone.

Next I polished the rear foot peg brackets. These were also initially polished back in '04.

Here's the bracket after polishing.