front brake lever

hi all I recently put ebc hh front brake pads in the wr when they bedded in a bit I noticed there was too much free play in the front brake lever so I adjusted it back to spec 5-8mm but the adjusting screw was nearly all the way in there was only about 1mm of adjustment left or about 1 turn on adjuster screw is this normal or have I missed something is it ok any advice will be appreciated thanks martin

You didn't happen to break open the brake lines or introduce air into the system did you?

When was the last time you changed brake fluid?

I assume that you measured the free play before and it was good but then changed after you changed the brake pads. Normally I would not expect this unless I some how introduced air into the brake lines which would give me a spongy feel and possibly make it difficult to measure free play.

The only other thing would be to make sure you pump the brakes all the way back out before measuring free play.

After that I would start to look for mechanical things like is the brake lever pivot bolt tight or is the bolt worn? How old is the bike and what is the mileage? Is it time to rebuild the master cylinder?

Just went through a similar issue on my KTM 450 EXC but in that case the rear brake always had a lot of free play. In the end I needed to replace the brake lever bearings, brake m/c push rod, and rebuilt the rear brake MC. After that it was better but not as good as I thought it should be. The last little bit turned out to be a worn and twisted foot peg - was running out of adjustment to get the brake lever into the right spot. Replaced that and now I like it.

hi thanks for advice the bikes a 2008 wr250r and it only covered ten thousand miles I didn't really measure anything I just put new pads in suspended caliper etc when I did the brake pad change the front brake isn't spongy it stops very well so as far as I know there shouldn't be any air in the system. before I changed them the freeplay was about right ie 1/4 inch but when I had covered a couple of hundred miles free play was more like 15mm its just theres hardly anymore adjustment to accommodate future brake pad wear. maybe the new pads were slightly thinner? and I changed the fluid about 500m ago I used yamalube brake fluid if this makes a solution any easier thanks martin

street*outlaw wrote:

hi thanks for advice the bikes a 2008 wr250r and it only covered ten thousand miles I didn't really measure anything I just put new pads in suspended caliper etc when I did the brake pad change the front brake isn't spongy it stops very well so as far as I know there shouldn't be any air in the system. before I changed them the freeplay was about right ie 1/4 inch but when I had covered a couple of hundred miles free play was more like 15mm its just theres hardly anymore adjustment to accommodate future brake pad wear. maybe the new pads were slightly thinner? and I changed the fluid about 500m ago I used yamalube brake fluid if this makes a solution any easier thanks martin

Disc brakes self adjust as they wear.

More fluid will build up in the caliper to take the place of brake pad material that was removed so there will not be any additional increase in lever free play. This is why you need to push the pistons back into the caliper when you change pads.

Generally once you set the free play it will stay pretty much the same through pad wear. Now if you run out of fluid in the MC and introduce air in the system then you will have a spongy brake. If the mechanical bits of the master cylinder wear over time the you will notice some additional free play that you could either adjust out or rebuild the assembly.

ok thank you for your excellent advice and taking the time to try and help cheers martin