Last week, I made my monthly call to Arlen Ness to check on the status of their development and production of their big (15") brake kit, which they told me over the winter would be available around the beginning of the summer. Surprisingly, I was told they just started production and actually had a few ready to ship. I immediately ordered one, and it arrived yesterday. I had to roll over to my dealer to pick up some new rotor bolts, as technically you're not supposed to reuse them.

So tonight, after getting home from dinner and drinks, I decided I had one too many to ride, but not to work on my front brake...

I never took off a wheel before, and was a little apprehensive, only about the front wheel speed sensor for the ABS, but my concern was completely unwarranted. Two caliper bolts, off, Pinch bolt, off. Axle, off. Wheel, off. 5 rotor bolts, off, and in the trash. New rotor on, with some blue loctite and torqued. Cleaned off and reapplied some silver loctite anti seize to most of the axle, except for the threads of course. Had some debate on whether to use loctite on the axle and pinch bolt threads, but decided since the service manual didn't specify (while it does for many other instances) I'd leave it off. Wheel in place, spacers back on. Found it really interesting that the ABS sensor acts as a spacer as well. Torqued the wheel and pinch bolt. Stupidly, I forgot brake cleaner, but wiped down the new rotor with some acetone I had, and waited for it to dry before proceeding. How bad could that be? Torqued and blue loctite on the new caliper adapter bolts (4 of the, 2 from adapter to fork, 2 from adapter to caliper). Really couldn't be easier.

Since I was still feeling the evening's martinis, I only did some low speed rolling around the parking lot. The brakes felt like brakes. Impossible to tell anything at 6 mph. Tomorrow we're out all day and will likely be boozing it up, so the ride report will have to wait until Sunday.

People I know on the Dyna forums had installed these on the Street Bob (the only Dyna with single discs) and reported a substantial improvement, so I am pretty psyched.

Here are some crappy photos.

Wheel off, new rotor on.


Wheel mounted


Caliper adapter


Stock rotor vs new one


I have to give the tire a once over to make sure I didn't get any anti-seize on the tread. Looking forward to trying it out. Sucks that I'll need to break in the front brake again, but the 100 miles will go pretty quick I expect.

I have Lyndall Gold + pads in there currently, which went in about 800 miles ago, so they are pretty, if not almost like new. I also have some of the same pads arriving Monday for the rears.

As said, I'll post my initial impression Sunday night prob. I expect it will be well worth the $300...

 

Nice. Let us know how well it works.

 

Saw the historical thread and all the initial troubles and strife you had with this. Glad you finally got a good result. Apparently 'All good things come to those that wait.' I sincerely hope your wait was worth it but cannot see why it shouldn't be. Mate of mine is going down a similar route with floating discs due to continual warping of solid ones.

 

Have a full day planned today that won't give me any saddle time, but I had to get a ride in to try this out. So I got out the door at 7 this morning for a quick 40 miles.

I was expecting a noticeable improvement, and I got it. I would say while its hard to quantify without taking measurements, this is easily the 30% increase in stopping power they advertise. And I expect that will improve as the pads bed further. I ran through my usual break in procedure: 5 slightly harder then normal slow downs from 40-50mph to about 10, to warm things up, then about 10 really aggressive repeats of the same. To the point the tire howled and squealed but not kicking in ABS, and also not stopping or holding the pads on one spot on the rotor. Braking improved noticeably when done, and will continue to over the next few rides.

All in all, I'm really happy with the kit, and if you ever felt like you wanted more from your single disk setup, this is as cheap, quick and easy a way as you can go.

 

Looks nice.. I think I saw a video where a dude installed on on his dyna and did a rudimentary stop distance comparison.

 

Looks much better than the stock rotor and matches your wheel better as well. Glad you got what you expected with the improved braking power.

 

Whats the minimum wheel size for this 18"

 

Thanks for posting this, very informative!

 

No idea. Give Arlen Ness a call and they should be able to tell you.

 

Thanks for the great writeup, Mchad. Very glad to see this AN BBK hit the market - it's now moved up to the top of my mods list.

Note: This kit gives you a for real floating disc. Much better design.

Question - Were you able to install the caliper with the wheel and disc installed (like you would if you just wanted to change pads)? Or did you bolt the bracket and caliper in place first and then slide the wheel into place, guiding the disc in between the pads?