front caliper questions

[Guest]

'79 GS850GN-- 39,500 miles

After some help from you guys I'm about ready to put my front calipers back together. A few questions.

1. Someone wrote that the bolts the caliper assembly slides on should still be chromed. There is little chrome left at all on these bolts. Is this a problem?

2. Grease questions. What kind of grease do I use on the above mentioned bolts? Also, The book says something about different colored brake grease for the pads. Do you need to go by the book on this or is there a substitute available from an auto parts store or something?

Thanks

[KEITH KRAUSE]

The factory chrome plates the caliper axle bolts for the smoothest operation. If your chrome plate is nearly gone, the smoothness will be compromised. The bolts are expensive. You can try installing them and see how they operate I suppose? I bought the new o-rings for mine though.
Several years ago, I asked two different Suzuki dealers about the caliper axle grease in the factory manual. Neither sold or knew of the stuff. A mechanic at one shop said he used "caliper axle grease"(duh) but couldn't give me a brand name or show me the tube. Another parts/repair shop said they use "Disc Brake Caliper Slide Grease" by Ford. I used this on my bike ('79 GS1000E) with good results. I bought it at the Ford dealer. It's p/n D7AZ-19590-A if you're interested. I bought it about 5 years ago. Wasn't expensive.
The pad grease you mentioned is/was a copper based grease sold in a small tin. Very expensive for the amount you get. A little dab behind the pad pushed by the piston, stopped squealing brakes. It works well... for awhile. Forces soon push the dab of grease aside and the brakes can squeal again. I had squealing brakes in the front and I got tired of adding dabs of the copper grease. Nothing else worked well either...sticky spray-ons, hi temp greases, different pads...My brakes squealed because the rotors were glazed shiny. I lived with it.
During my restoration, I had the rotors drilled and they've been pretty quiet so far, about 20,000 miles.

[gspaul]

All I can tell you is what allways worked for me,if the bolt's don't feel totaly smooth give them a bit of a rub with very fine wet & dry paper.
Use hi-temp grease on the bolts but very little,less rather than more.
Never fail's.

[mark]

reply

Thanks again for the info. I'm going to put them back together as is for now and see what happens. If it looks like I'll be able to get somewhere with this bike without spending huge amounts of money, I can replace more stuff later.

[Anonymous]

I've got the exact same bike, and I've got a question:

Should each of those calipers have a bleeder valve/screw?

On my bike only the one on the left side of the tire (from the driver's perspective) has one. I'm bleeding the brakes tomorrow using the info that I got from this forum, but I want to make sure I don't need to bleed both sides.