Steve, Thank you for the technical explanation for what is likely happening. The thought occurred to me that the pads could be "floating" and causing this. I just didn't know if "floating" was normal.

All others, Thank you for the quick response with similar experiences. I feel a little more comfortable that I have company and you have not experienced any catastophic failures at this point. I always put more faith in the forum telling me it is "normal" compared to the dealer. (However, I do feel lucky that I have had very good experiences with Dillon HD in Omaha, Ne.

 

Hey DanLPN could you shed a little more light on what they did to fix rear brake squeak, I also have same noise on and off
(3300 miles) When I wash the bike I spay out the rear pads with the hose and noise goes away for a few hundered mile, but
so far has always returned, seems the worse when brakes warm up a little and then light apllication. Sounds like a train brakes.

 

SteveUltra,
My squeek waspretty bad and happened everytime I stopped. The train brakes discribes it very well. Harley sent a brake repair kit to my local Harley dealier and they replaced my old brake pads with these new ones and had some kind of process they had to go through to complete the installation. If you continue to have problems I would talk to your dealiership and ask them about this repair and have them order one of these brake kits. To me it really sucked to have everybody looking at you when you stop at an intersection, not because you have this great looking bike, butbecause you blow out their earswith that loud squeek.
Good Luck

 

iowa I have not taken my front brakes apart and inspected so I am only speculating on the noise, but this is NOT an uncommon noise in the automotive world. Usually the pads don,t fit real tight in the caliper so they move and make some noise. The problem is that if the pads are to tight in the caliper they hang up and drag against the rotor....So the manufactures make things a little loose in there. Add to that a brake pad is not a precision piece of equipment and you get that noise. It never hurts to take a look and make sure everthing is secure, I don,t want to talk you out of checking your brakes.

As long as mine only make the noise once after switching from backwards to forwards I not concerned at all and will ride it that way until the pads wear out, maybe the next set will be a little tighter and not make the noise. If they start clanking every ten miles or all the time as others have said then I will look into it a little more.

I am more concerned with the rear brake squeal (sounds like a dammed ol' train) But I also know that brake squeal is usually caused by pad composition and until they reformulate the material they use in the pads the noise won't be any better with a new set of pads. I figuredI would wait awhile before trying new rear pads. The auto company I work for currentlly has a brake groan from front brakes and the fix for that is new pads BUT it took over a year for them to get the new pads to market after they became aware of the problem. (this is a company with very high customer satifaction) So as far as these brake noises go I would say be patiant and dont let them ruin the ride. ENJOY!!!

 

Thanks Dan, I hope the snow melts for you soon, My wife wants to move to Colorado, she has friends there. I say no f in way I know its beautiful there and all that, but too much snow and salt for me. Riding season officially starts for me TOMORROW. We leave for weekend trip to O.C. MD at 9:00am, forcast 70 deg. and sunny. About 200-250 miles, should be a good day ,can't wait. Forcast for ride home Sunday "COLD" oh well cant win em all. Need sleep now.

Good night.

 

The clank is the pads shifting back and forth and the squeal i have was on the back only and is starting to go away slowly on my 08UC with 2800 miles. It is still there when i begin to break but at the rate it is going away it may be gone in another 500 miles or so. I don't even notice it anymore. If it bothers you that much some have said changing out pads helps. I am not into changing out parts that don't need to be myself.

 

Now that you mention it, yes I have. I have also noticed when applying the brake going down the highway, much louder thou. []

 

I definitely clank and squeak. No performance problems though... yet.

 

The noise might be the pads shifting in the calipers, or it might be the ABS synchronizing, if the bike has this feature.

 

glad I found this thread. my 08 Road Glide (non ABS) clanks as described by many in this thread. I thought perhaps one of the pistons was staying out further and the clank was coming from the other pistion catching up and slapping the pad back in place.

I especially thought that since my H-D floating rotors were warped. bought the bike used and had fairly strong pulsating at purchase. pulled the front wheel off and put it on my balancing rig and found excessive runout of both disks. one much worse than the other. I was able to grab a new disk from the dealer on his discount table and most of my pulsating is gone.

I have since picked up a set off Ebay, but have been holding off installing them until I resolved what I thought was a hanging up pistion.

still going to do a serious caliper cleaning as explained/recommended on the Lyndall Brakes site, before I put on my new rotors.

http://www.lyndallracingbrakes.com/service_tech.htm