78 550 front caliper rattle

[Guest]

Hello, new member here, I've been riding a 1978 GS550E and I keep hearing a rattling noise coming from the front end, engaging the brake makes it go away. Turns out it's the front brake caliper, all the bolts are tight. It just seems to be floating around the brake pads. I haven't experienced any stopping power issues, so my question is- is this thing supposed to float around or is something wrong here?

[Brendan W]

I take the calipers off, clean and regrease the slider pins with rubber friendly silicone grease. Some slider pins had rubber sleeves on the inner end of the lower pin which I'm guessing was some sort of rattle and hum absorber. Check if it's there.The pin would be turned down to a smaller diameter for about 1/3 it's length. Take the pads out, clean them up and scrape off the crud on the caliper. That generally sorts things out in less time than I could have spent trying to figure out the cause.
Check your parts fiche. Most bikes had a shim fitted behind one of the pads, piston side generally. See if it's missing. Some call it the 'ant-rattle' shim although I've seen a lot of machines without them and no rattles including my own.
A certain amount of float and rock is ok otherwise the caliper can't line up with the disc.

[rlwebster91]

Ok I'll clean it and give it a look over, like I said it doesn't seem to be causing any braking issues, I'm new to working on bikes so I wasn't sure. Thanks for the help.