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California 1400 rear brake seized

J

John Symchik

Tuned and Synch'ed
GT Contributor
Joined
Apr 23, 2020
Messages
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Location
Englishtown, NJ
Hello,

Im looking for some input on the following

Today I took my California 1400 for a ride and at an intersection noticed the bike felt like the rear brake was dragging. I pulled over and it certainly was stuck on. The rotor was blue. VERY hot. I fiddled with the foot brake and it felt just as you would expect. As soon as you applied pressure it was rock hard. I won't claim to have waited very long and immediately started to figure out how I was going to move it. I had a small wrench and cracked the bleeder on the caliper. WOW. Steam and fluid shot out. I'm talking about a cloud. A gusher. A lot of heat and pressure. That released the brake and I carefully went home. I sprayed the whole area with the garden hose to get any brake fluid washed away.

The caliper is discolored as well as the rotor. I am expecting it's shot along with the rotor.

Im looking for the reason. The bike is in a perfect state of maintenance for nothing is rusty or corroded. I am suspicious it's the master because it appears it never opened up to allow the pressure to release. Strangely, however, everything is working fine now. So, lets just consider the possibility that I had a lazy foot and was on the brake. If it heated up shouldn't it release that pressure of the boiling fluid through the reservoir. I'm ignorant of exactly how that should work.

How should I proceed? Replace the rotor and caliper and test ride carefully or is what happened a sure sign that the master is malfunctioning. I also considered that the fluid is plumbed through the ABS module. Is there some kind of check valve in there that would prevent the pressure to release.

Thanks for any thoughts or advice.
 
I had a small stone fall in between the foot brake lever and its stop, every time I applied the brake the stone dropped lower and lower putting on pressure and finally locking the wheel. The rotor went blue, once everything cooled down though it drove fine, I did replace the fluid.
 
I've just had this problem with one of the brakes on my car, the piston was seized in the caliper I would check that first.

Edit. Ignore that I've just read your post again and you say everything works fine now.
 
John Symchik said:
So, lets just consider the possibility that I had a lazy foot and was on the brake. If it heated up shouldn't it release that pressure of the boiling fluid through the reservoir. I'm ignorant of exactly how that should work.
Click to expand...

No.

John Symchik said:
How should I proceed? Replace the rotor and caliper and test ride carefully or is what happened a sure sign that the master is malfunctioning. I also considered that the fluid is plumbed through the ABS module. Is there some kind of check valve in there that would prevent the pressure to release.

Thanks for any thoughts or advice.
Click to expand...

If it were mine, all of those components would be replaced. You destroyed them with excessive heat as evidenced by the discoloration.

Check valve? In a sense, yes.

The brake system is designed to trap the fluid in the hydraulic line and apply pressure to it to cause the brake to operate.

I suspect that you inadvertently rode the brake with your foot until you superheated the brake and hence, the brake fluid, and she locked up on you.
 
scottmastrocinque said:
No.



If it were mine, all of those components would be replaced. You destroyed them with excessive heat as evidenced by the discoloration.

Check valve? In a sense, yes.

The brake system is designed to trap the fluid in the hydraulic line and apply pressure to it to cause the brake to operate.

I suspect that you inadvertently rode the brake with your foot until you superheated the brake and hence, the brake fluid, and she locked up on you.
Click to expand...
Now that I think of it here's a better way of asking the question. I think I have my own answer. When you pry pads apart at the caliper the fluid retreats into the reservoir. So without pressure on the master there is a return path to the reservoir. Why then with me off the bike would the pads still be locked tight on the rotor with enough pressure to spout steam from the bleeder. I mentioned riding the brake but I really doubt I did it.
 
If it's the same as the 2018 Eldorado I owned , the rear brake line (close to the rear master cylinder) was barely 1/4" from the exhaust
header . I loosened the entire exhaust system and moved it until I was able to get the line an inch or more away from the header . The rear brake pedal stayed as it should after that . Worth looking into . Peter
 
Moto-Uno said:
If it's the same as the 2018 Eldorado I owned , the rear brake line (close to the rear master cylinder) was barely 1/4" from the exhaust
header . I loosened the entire exhaust system and moved it until I was able to get the line an inch or more away from the header . The rear brake pedal stayed as it should after that . Worth looking into . Peter
Click to expand...
I would guess that this is same issue with THIS bike, never seen steam coming out of bleeder, it uses hi temp fluid.
Maybe it has modified exhaust fit too close. Fluid does not circulate, only gets put under pressure, nothing else. ABS is nothing more than a vibrator.
 
If you had steam (really it would be “condensed water vapor” as steam is invisible) then you had contaminated brake fluid to begin with.

In the process of the entire assembly getting superheated, all bets are off. The master cylinder piston was never designed to deal with boiling fluids and certainly not water.

The unit did not get hot enough simply by being in proximity to the exhaust, to generate the outcome you described. There was input from the pedal. Of this I am fairly certain.

For all I know, the reservoir was way overfilled. I have seen that 1 million times in my time as a mechanic. People are just obsessed with filling every fluid to the MAXIMUM indicator even though this is a very bad idea.

I saw the things occur like you are describing, when there was contamination in the fluid, (usually from high pressure car wash wands) and a recent change of brake pads. You see, the reservoir was already full, but then they pry the piston fully into the open position, and then the returning fluid actually overfilled the reservoir which then when it overheated, the expanded fluid and pressure had no place to go and hence the brakes vapor locked.

In any event, as a motorcycle only has 2 brakes on 2 wheels, as I said, in my harem, she would be receiving a new brake assembly.

You must decide for yourself what level of safety you are comfortable with.

At a bare minimum, I would tear the master cylinder and the caliper apart and rebuild them both. The rotor, once discolored, is toast! It most certainly is warped and I would never trust her again, but that’s me.

YMMV

👌😀🤞
 
I doubt you were riding the brake. On the 1400 I had I was guilty of unknowingly riding the rear brake a couple of times. The red triangle of death started flashing with the dash stating something like "brake on". I don't remember the exact message but the bike let me know I was dragging the brake. Like already mentioned sounds like you had water in the system which boiled creating pressure which deployed the brake which caused more heat and pressure resulting in a locked brake. You should probably replace rear caliper, disc and flush the complete system.
kk
 
moparnut72 said:
The red triangle of death started flashing with the dash stating something like "brake on". I don't remember the exact message but the bike let me know I was dragging the brake.
Click to expand...

I’ve never seen this or heard of it but that’s a nice feature to have. Thanks for the info!
 
I too saw this on my Eldorado after I'd done some repositioning of Rear brake light switch and peg assembly . Corrected and
the light went out. Peter
 
moparnut72 said:
I doubt you were riding the brake. On the 1400 I had I was guilty of unknowingly riding the rear brake a couple of times. The red triangle of death started flashing with the dash stating something like "brake on". I don't remember the exact message but the bike let me know I was dragging the brake. Like already mentioned sounds like you had water in the system which boiled creating pressure which deployed the brake which caused more heat and pressure resulting in a locked brake. You should probably replace rear caliper, disc and flush the complete system.
kk
Click to expand...
Had the same thing on my Eldo, with BRAKE message on the dash, had absently been riding with slight pressure on the pedal. It returned to normal in a couple of minutes. I also make a point of putting a small dab of brake & caliper grease on the two sliding pins whenever I change the pads.
 
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