Alright guys this is just something dumb that I've discussed with another unnamed person.. It's pretty common knowledge that the brakes changedno brembos in 08-13. My knowledge of the rushmores is nil. Now here's where our little disagreement comes onm. Despite a color difference mine being black and say an 11 cvo rgu being silver someone is tellin me that a cvo caliper is different than say a regular sg. I believe their reasoning is the cvo has a floating root therefore it has a floating caliper. I for one have never seen nor heard of a floating caliper. I'm pretty sure something needs to have a fixed point somewhere lol. This isn't intended to point out who's wrong or right but have I overlooked something about brakes for years and not read a single article about them anywhere?

 

Calipers are "Fixed", "Stationary", do not float.

 

There are a lot of floating calipers, they actually slide.

There are some exceptions to the below listed.

Most of these are the single piston variety. When you apply the brakes, the pad next to the piston is pushed against the rotor, and the pad on the other side is pulled against the rotor with equal force (if all is clean and functioning properly). The pad that is pulled is actually sliding on 2 pins, (a lot of shade tree mechanics do not clean and use a proper grease on these 2 pins).

If the caliper did not float (slide), you would only have braking force on one side of the rotor (this would not be a good braking system).

 

What is the difference between "fixed" and "floating" calipers? Fixed calipers have "opposing", both inner and outer pistons. Floating calipers have pistons on just the inside and rely on movement or "float" to apply pressure to the outside of the rotor.

 

Calipers fixed. Rotors float.

 

This is some of the terminology used in doing brakes. But a rotor does not float, it can only move in a circular motion. A single piston caliper can only push on the side that the piston is on. The other side of the caliper, gets pulled to the rotor from the pushing pressure of the piston, it slides (floats) along 2 pins and this squeezes the rotor, hence to brakes.

 

Fixed calipers are usually 4 piston style with opposed pistons. A single large piston style caliper must slide on pins.