Twin-pot Kawasaki Caliper Rebuild

[Guest]

I have one of the calipers apart and I've cleaned off the caked-on brake dust that accumulated on the pistons. That stuff just laughed at the brake cleaner I sprayed on it, by the way.

The smaller piston appears to be perfect, but the larger one has some pitting. Can light pitting be polished out, or is the piston shot?

If I need to replace the piston, does anyone know of a place where I can pick one up and not pay an arm and a leg for one? I haven't found any used pistons available on Ebay and new ones seem stupidly expensive at the places I've checked.

I also happened across these guys that make stainless steel replacement pistons. They don't have the Ninja 250/other models that use the same calipers or any Suzuki's listed, but they have a note that says to call them if you don't see your model listed. I'm wondering if this might be the way to go.

[cowboyup3371]

Talk to Z1 as they had the seals and pads for my setup. You'll want to call as I don't think they had them listed online.

[Dogma]

On those calipers, the piston can go all the way up under the dust seals. So any pitting on that end of the piston could allow the caliper to ingest some of that crud that laughs at brake cleaner. In general, unless the pitting is so far inside the caliper that it never passes the seal, you'll want to replace the piston.

I agree with talking to Z1. They won't steer you far wrong, if at all. You can try PartShark too, maybe Boulevard Suzuki.

[greg78gs750]

hey, madcap, if you come across some good rebuild stuff, please post it, i am going to be doing the twinpot mod soon! thanks!

greg

[Rover]

PM sent about pistons.

[MadCapsule]

Okey dokey, the merchant I linked to before, hvccycle.com, sent me an email today. They can get replacement pistons for $27.80 apiece, for each piston size. That's the best price I've found so far, but I haven't had a chance to call Z1 yet.

They can indeed machine stainless steel replacement pistons and the guy said that they would come out to around $20 apiece. However, they would need a minimum order of twenty of each size for it to be worth the machine time, which is understandable. I doubt there are enough of us scratching around for stainless Kawasaki pistons to get a mass order going, but I've been wrong before.

I've seen a couple posts inquiring about stainless pistons for stock GS calipers, so interested parties may want to investigate that.

Also, I just replied to your pm, Rover.