Dumb, Dumb, Dumb...

[kpinvt]

My wife Fran and I along with our son Max were in a campground about thirty miles from the house for all of the week before last. I brought my NC out after I had the camper set up so I could ride along with Max on his CB500X. Some of the old river roads near the campground have recently been repaved so Max and I spent quite a bit of time exploring them. About mid-week the brakes on the NC felt odd with a strange sound coming from the back of the bike. I only heard the sound when riding up to the ranger station to buy a bag of ice without my ear plugs in. Instead of riding straight home at the first chance I continued to ride the bike until I got a flat in the rear tire from a hole about 3/4 of an inch wide. When I brought the bike into a shop to install a set of Shinko 705's the mechanic said the sound was coming from the worn out rear brake pad. The bare pad had deeply scarred the rear rotor. The mechanic replaced the pads with a used set he on hand and told me to start looking for a rear rotor. He said the Honda OEM rotor goes for $270. Ouch! I found one at Honda Parts Nation for $190. I looked on Ebay and found a few for around $60. They all have Sunstar stamped on them and most of the ads report thicknesses in the 4.5 mm to 4.8 mm range. My questions are how thick is the OEM rotor and how thin is too thin and does Honda source them from China?

 

[sumo]

My 2016 has 13000 km / 8100 miles. I'm easy on the brakes so my rotor should be good for a while yet, 4.8 mm



And yes it is stamped SUNSTAR

 

[kpinvt]

I should have mentioned that my bike is the DCT model and has approximately 10,500 miles on it. I drag the rear brake a lot because there is no clutch to feather. I found a rotor, not OEM, at Mad Hornets in California.

Rear Brake Disc Rotor Honda NC700S NC700X NC750X NC750S (12-14) - Mad Hornets

I don't know anything about them.

 

[drdubb]

I had the same happen to me after a tire change at the dealership. Less than 4000 miles at the time. I think when tje wheel was remounted, the pads jammed at angle, wearing them quickly and at an angle. I found it is very tricky to get that wheel mounted without jamming those pads. I do it myself now to make sure it is right.

 

[supertux1]

The non-moving non-piston side of my brake pads are always touching the rotors a bit on the front and the back. Enough to make a faint sound but doesn't impact the rotation of the wheel any.
I figure it'll wear the pad a bit then go away. Is this normal?

I only ask because on disc brakes with bicycles there's an adjuster to move the pads in and out on either side once the caliper is mounted. I find no such thing on the NC700.

 

[bamamate]

The non-moving non-piston side of my brake pads are always touching the rotors a bit on the front and the back. Enough to make a faint sound but doesn't impact the rotation of the wheel any.
I figure it'll wear the pad a bit then go away. Is this normal?

I only ask because on disc brakes with bicycles there's an adjuster to move the pads in and out on either side once the caliper is mounted. I find no such thing on the NC700.

My experience......
That is not unusual if it is very light and you only hear it when rotating the wheel by hand. Greasing the pin and sliders can help but yeah they usually drag just a touch and it isn't unusual for the rotor to not be perfect all the way around so you may hear them intermittently touch as the rotor goes round. New pads will do it more until they are broke in but even older pads can do it. In theory they shouldn't but every disk brake vehicle I've had with sliding calipers does this. The non piston side needs to be extremely close to the rotor to lower how far the piston has to travel before clamping pressure starts to build and the springing back on release of the brakes isn't exactly a precise action.

 

[bamamate]

My wife Fran and I along with our son Max were in a campground about thirty miles from the house for all of the week before last. I brought my NC out after I had the camper set up so I could ride along with Max on his CB500X. Some of the old river roads near the campground have recently been repaved so Max and I spent quite a bit of time exploring them. About mid-week the brakes on the NC felt odd with a strange sound coming from the back of the bike. I only heard the sound when riding up to the ranger station to buy a bag of ice without my ear plugs in. Instead of riding straight home at the first chance I continued to ride the bike until I got a flat in the rear tire from a hole about 3/4 of an inch wide. When I brought the bike into a shop to install a set of Shinko 705's the mechanic said the sound was coming from the worn out rear brake pad. The bare pad had deeply scarred the rear rotor. The mechanic replaced the pads with a used set he on hand and told me to start looking for a rear rotor. He said the Honda OEM rotor goes for $270. Ouch! I found one at Honda Parts Nation for $190. I looked on Ebay and found a few for around $60. They all have Sunstar stamped on them and most of the ads report thicknesses in the 4.5 mm to 4.8 mm range. My questions are how thick is the OEM rotor and how thin is too thin and does Honda source them from China?

2012 manual says standard (new) is 4.8-5.2 while 4.0 is the service limit. SunStar is the factory brand name.

 

[supertux1]

My experience......
That is not unusual if it is very light and you only hear it when rotating the wheel by hand. Greasing the pin and sliders can help but yeah they usually drag just a touch and it isn't unusual for the rotor to not be perfect all the way around so you may hear them intermittently touch as the rotor goes round. New pads will do it more until they are broke in but even older pads can do it. In theory they shouldn't but every disk brake vehicle I've had with sliding calipers does this. The non piston side needs to be extremely close to the rotor to lower how far the piston has to travel before clamping pressure starts to build and the springing back on release of the brakes isn't exactly a precise action.

Ok cool. I only really noticed this after changing tires. I bolted everything up snug but not torqued; axle, pinch bolt, caliper bolts, then bounced up and down on the front forks a little so things could get settled/aligned. Then I torqued the the axle, pinch bolt and caliper bolts to spec.

 

[marekm]

I should have mentioned that my bike is the DCT model and has approximately 10,500 miles on it. I drag the rear brake a lot because there is no clutch to feather...

Why ? In what circumstances ?

I ride a 2016 NC 750 X DCT and hardly ever use the rear brake. In normal circumstances, I use the engine to slow down (traffic lights, intersections) with a little bit of front brake assist to come to a complete stop.

Throttle response is very smooth, so slow riding in city traffic (filtering) is easy.

The only scenario where I could perhaps miss the clutch is rough off-road (when you are thrown around on the bike - more difficult to keep a steady hand on the throttle), but than NC is no off-road bike

 

[Deleted member 1183]

I see mention of uneven pad wear above. I had noticed uneven wear on the rear caliper pads of my NC also. It often seemed as if something was out of line when the caliper was mounted. I also seem to remember a thread or a series of posts where someone else on here definitely identified an out of line rear brake caliper and pursued the matter with Honda.

With regard to dragging the rear brake, I must admit to doing so occasionally through some bends. I am not sure if I am deluding myself but I feel that it tends to steady the bike a little in some circumstances. Of course there is copious use of the rear brake offroad and perhaps some of that is crossing over to my road riding. However I have found that rear pads generally do not last near as long as front ones, so I always have a look at all pads when checking the tyre pressures.

 

[ld_rider]

I should have mentioned that my bike is the DCT model and has approximately 10,500 miles on it. I drag the rear brake a lot because there is no clutch to feather.

.

Yikes! There is a LOT of brake dragging going on there....

My DCT doesn't have a clutch to feather either and my rear brakes w/30,000+ miles on them are original. I just measured the rear disk with a Starrett dial caliper ('cause this post got me all worried) and it is at 5.08mm and pads have about another 15,000 miles (at least) of life on them. Whew!

Once you get the new pads and rotor on...lay off the rear brake a bit ;-)