Front brakes glaze sitting in rain

Everytime I leave the C2 out in the rain (and that's quite often here in Vancouver), the front brakes seem to glaze over or something. When I go to start the bike, the front brakes are almost useless and I end up holding them down lightly for about 200m (1/8 mile) before the brakes heat up or burn off the glaze. But a lot can happen in 200m, so I'm looking for a way to prevent this in the future.

I'm not sure if they're the original pads, maybe not if the rotors have been swapped.

That said, when the brake are good, they are GOOD. Someone drilled the double front rotors on this C2, and I can feel the rear lift a bit sometimes.

tips from the pros?

PS. You SoCal people need not reply - I ran into you guys last december.. yeah you guys who were so disappointed that you missed TWO riding days this year due to rain. No really, I love SoCal, see y'all in the autumn!

cover it up?

I strongly doubt that it is the rain that is causing your problem. I think you have either a fork oil leak, or a brake fluid leak. I have ridden in the rain a number of times without any loss of brake pad friction. I have also have had a very slightly leaky caliper, and THAT resulted in very poor braking.

If you have a fork oil leak or a brake fluid leak, the water on top of that will result in no brake pad friction whatsoever. You should look for the leak, fix that, then clean off the residual oil/fluid from the disc area, and REPLACE the brake pads. Once the pads are soaked in oil/brake fluid, it is near impossible to get them cleaned off completely.

if the "glaze" is just surface rust, that is normal

but the brakes won't be completely useless, just not as good as they should be.

maybe you have racing pads in, in which they aren't great unil they are warmed a bit, but then they are excellent.

Post edited by: lifeliberty, at: 2006/07/31 11:24

I would suggest getting a new set of pads, and slowly "bed" them in. I bet the ones you have on there now are either glazed, old, or too hard of a material. If you are rinind the bike on normal roads(read as "no track days"), then standard pad compound will be just fine.

My opinion, and I'm sticking to it.

Actually, I had a (brand new) 1982 GPz1100 that would exhibit exactly the same symptoms. I finally had the discs resurfaced and new pads and that seemed to clear it up.

Thanks, the pads are almost done so I'll try a new set of fronts over the winter. I think they're the original brake pads because I've never seen OEM pads with the red band on them. My Emgo rear pads sure don't.

from jarle.eltelevest.no/Kawasaki/Series/Z/650/z650.htm



New brakes, the Z650C3-4 1979-80
The C3 was the first Kawasaki model to use the new all weather sintered disk pads and braking in the wet was much improved.