I changed my rotors for the polished ones, with new brake pads. But I still brake noise. someone told me I need floating rotors. My question is, WTF is floating rotors? What is the benefit of floating rotors? I am just clueless about this.

 

on floaters the actual friction zone is riveted to the rotor by small hollow rivets. this dampens vibration, aids in cooling, and is a better performing rotor...... now on polished rotors there are actually certain types of brake pads you need to use not sure which but i know that any old pad will cause discoloration and reduced braking because of the wrongly mated materials..... some one will have a more educated answer but that all of mine

 

I always thought the benefit of floaters was that you always had maximum pad to disk contact on both sides of the disk. Essentially if the disk was very slightly warped or uneven in thickness you would still have maximum braking. This is why roadracers always want floaters.

Do people put floaters on a touring bike for better performance as well?

 

Floaters are definitely a much improved method for attaching the rotor to the wheel and should in this day and time be standard equipment on a heavy weight Harley. Hopefully none of us are riding our touring bikes in a manner that requires heavy performance braking like a sport bike, but consider summer temperatures and riding in the twisties two up and there is mucho heat built up in the direct bolt on OEM HD rotors. Not good!

All metals "grow" when heated. The diameter of cast iron brake discs can increase as much as 2 or 3mm at elevated braking temperatures. When the disc is radially restrained from growing (as in all one-piece rotors in the stock Harley bolt on configuartion) the friction plates (rotors) are forced into a cone shape as temperature increases, adversely effecting both temperature and pressure distribution within the pads and the feel of the break pedal or brake lever.

Then add in the fact that conventional brake rotors don’t run absolutely true. They all wiggle a little bit. No matter how careful you are about truing them up and and any bearing looseness, rotor wear, manufacturing tolerances of the hub, rotor, and rotor adaptor all add up. This can cause a feeling of brakes pulsing and decreased peformance.

This is where dynamically mounted (floating rivet attachement) rotors come in. When you dynamically mount a brake rotor you allow a small amount of movement axially (side to side). When a brake rotor is spinning it can contain large amounts of stored energy. Under Newton's first law of motion he states that any body will continue in its state of motion (still or traveling) until outside forces change it. What this means is once the rotor is spinning it finds where it needs to be and stays there. That is the beauty of the floating rotor design.

IMHO putting floating rotors on a HD touring machine is a super inexpensive peformance upgrade for one of the most important safety features on a motorcyle. Maybe this should be a new rumor for 2007 HD. Standard equipment ALL bikes have floating rotors.

Who remembers when HD had one simple rotor and a two puck caliper onthe heayweights.....boy was that scary

 

So in responce Fimduc, do I need special brak pads? Since the heat dissipation is increased with floating rotors.

 

The stock pads will work fine, I use EBC Kevlar, better quality/less dust. Floating rotors not only look good (better quality stainless), they perform, eliminate stock squealing/pulsing and extend pad life. Should be on every touring bike!

 

Floating Rotors
With Lyndall brake pads. No noise or dust.

 

Fimduc,

Great explanation

Paul

 

My '06 RK Classic has the stock rotors and pads and in the 2 months and 4,300 miles I've owned/ridden it, it hasn't made any brake noise. Am I lucky or did HD put the new "floaters" on my '06 model? Can you tell if they are floaters just by just looking at them?

Edmo

 

You can tell "floaters" because the outer abrasive area and the center hub will be attached with "ring" rivets. I attached pictures of the stock rotor and of a floating rotor.

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