Lost my brakes in the rain

[tkent02]

Exactly.
Suzuki (and the other makers) knew they were selling death on wheels to hapless riders who used them in the rain.

Again, BS. The later brakes are certainly better, but the early ones were hardly death on wheels, or I would be dead many thousands of times over. Used the brakes in the rain almost daily, for years and years.

Seattle has a lot of rainy days, I commuted across the city in heavy traffic every day for years.

No death, no falling down even.

[tkent02]

Maybe if you grew up riding modern sport bikes the old brakes would spell death.

If you grew up riding bikes with crappy drum brakes the early discs were a huge improvement. They didn't fade halfway through a stop, they had enough power for the tires of the day. Before the first GS I prefered a drum on the back, so at least some of the brakes would come on sooner. XS 650, CB 750, RD 350, others. When the '77 GS 550 came out it was no longer necessary, the front disc came on pretty quickly even when wet. No grabbing, no locking of wheels, no death. No waiting for the disc to dry out, simply squeeze the lever and you start slowing down.

If you are not happy with your brakes why not upgrade them?

This works pretty well:

[Grimly]

Your point is wide of my mark. Commuting in city traffic is NOT the same as high-speed work on motorways (freeways to you).

[tkent02]

Actually it is all kinds of roads, freeways, surface streets, the works. How do you think we get across cities?
I really don't care about your mark.
Ride with your crappy brakes anywhere you like.

[Dj66]

There sure are some arrogant asses on board here.

[bccap]

Again, BS. The later brakes are certainly better, but the early ones were hardly death on wheels, or I would be dead many thousands of times over. Used the brakes in the rain almost daily, for years and years.

Seattle has a lot of rainy days, I commuted across the city in heavy traffic every day for years.

No death, no falling down even.

It rains in Seattle ?

[tkent02]

There sure are some arrogant asses on board here.

I'm sorry, anyone trying to say thi is normal because his brakes are supposed to suck is going to get an argument from me.

Got caught in a little rain on my way back from a bike show yesterday. It had only been raining for a couple of minutes and I hadn't ridden through any puddles, but as I turned into my subdivision I realized that my front brakes were gone. Tried to use my back brake to stop but with the wet pavement it locked up and I started to slide. Somehow I managed to recover and avoid hitting the median or laying it down and I managed to make my way home SLOWLY.

Awhile back I noticed a small drip of brake fluid coming from the lower part of one of the front calipers. I am assuming that the rain washed some of this down onto the rotors which caused my front brakes to fail.

This is NOT how they are supposed to work.

[Grimly]

Actually it is all kinds of roads, freeways, surface streets, the works. How do you think we get across cities?
I really don't care about your mark.
Ride with your crappy brakes anywhere you like.

Please yourself. Your brakes were wonderful, mine weren't. Funny how thousands of other people in wet countries were wrong too, isn't it?
Like I said, Suzuki and the other makers knew they had to do something else they'd have been facing a crapstorm of legal actions, and even then, back in those days, the legal scum were just limbering up - they dropped the ball on that one. If the same situation with crappy design had come about now, the class action lawsuits would be peppering the boardrooms of Tokyo.

[tkent02]

I never said they were wonderful, if they were wonderful I wouldn't have replaced them with better ones. I'm saying they were not death traps. You are saying this guys brakes failing completely is normal?

I'm saying Bullsh:t.

[greg78gs750]

i call bs on the stock brakes being terrible too. as for arrogance on the board, uh, welcome to the interwebz?? sheesh, what is this, a barney episode?

[Grimly]

I never said they were wonderful, if they were wonderful I wouldn't have replaced them with better ones. I'm saying they were not death traps. You are saying this guys brakes failing completely is normal?

I'm saying Bullsh:t.

You seem to be reading something into what I wrote that wasn't there. I'm saying they were crap in the wet kind of conditions that commonly existed IN THE COUNTRY I was living in. Many thousands of other riders discovered it too. I know I'm not bull****ting - I'm telling you my direct experience of these dreadful things.
It should tell you something that I'm happy enough with the later brakes to stick with them and even fit them to both bikes. In time, as the supply of good parts for the later brakes dries up, I will probably fit ex-Deauville Brembos to both of them, but for now I'm sticking with '80-on calipers and keeping them up to scratch. Now those don't have anything like the shortcomings of the '79 ones.
ps. There's another thread I started where I described how I started to strip the '79 calipers and discovered they were so corroded internally, through cunning design, allowing road muck and salt to sit inside the body of the caliper, that I concluded that they were dangerous for further use and tossed them in the corner.
Strike 2 against Suzuki 1970's design.
Howver, having said that - the rest of the bike was bloody good (except the charging system, as we all know) and it's because of that I've put up with its shortcomings all these years.
When I diss Suzuki over a failure or two it's because I feel let down - I expected better from them, escpecially from a part or system that could been deadly.

[tkent02]

Here's what the new guy asked:

Got caught in a little rain on my way back from a bike show yesterday. It had only been raining for a couple of minutes and I hadn't ridden through any puddles, but as I turned into my subdivision I realized that my front brakes were gone. Tried to use my back brake to stop but with the wet pavement it locked up and I started to slide. Somehow I managed to recover and avoid hitting the median or laying it down and I managed to make my way home SLOWLY.

Awhile back I noticed a small drip of brake fluid coming from the lower part of one of the front calipers. I am assuming that the rain washed some of this down onto the rotors which caused my front brakes to fail.

It has been raining off and on here since so I haven't tested the bike now that it is dry but does that sound plausible?

And here's what you said:

Welcome to the 1980s and the sheer crap we had to put up with during wet weather.
Modern pad materials made a huge improvement, even on old caliper and disc designs, but it's only really brought car-type take-it-for-granted braking to bikes in the past 20-odd years. Earlier than that, you have to be a bit cautious in the wet, decent pad material or not.
Part of riding defensively in the '80s was keeping the water wiped off the disc by regularly giving the lever a light touch and hoping you didn't really need to brake hard at any time.

Basically telling this newb not to bother fixing his brakes, that these are terrible brakes and that is normal.

It is NOT normal. The early GS brakes were not as good as later ones but they were not unsafe, they were much much better than the disc brakes other bikes had just a few years before..

If you want to get new riders killed I can't think of a better way of doing it than telling him his non functional brakes are normal.

If your calipers were corroded your maintenance was unsafe, not the brakes. Mine never corroded riding the bike over 100,000 miles, almost daily and usually in rain.

I did change the brake fluid once in a while, and lubed the calipers occasionally too. You should try it.

[Dj66]

i call bs on the stock brakes being terrible too. as for arrogance on the board, uh, welcome to the interwebz?? sheesh, what is this, a barney episode?

I just get tired of the attitudes constantly being distributed apparently according to mood. I like to hack on a newbie as much as the next guy,but life is too short to go around being a prick all the time.

[tkent02]

I get tired of idiots putting out false information that will get people killed.

[Dj66]

I get tired of idiots putting out false information that will get people killed.

Your opinion is not supported universally,my statement should lead an individual to modify there inadequate stock braking system,leading to safer operation.