I have a GL1500 with a Escort hack. I have owned the unit for 2 years, purchased it together. The sidecar brake is on the front master cylinder. The brakes, front and rear, have alwas been "mushy". Both systems have been flushed and bled. I have just replace the caliper on the hack with a new Brembo, still a 32MM, it has a braided line. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has experienced this. Is there a cure or do I learn to live with it? Thanks
If the pads are excessively worn down, no amount of bleeding will fix it. If your pads (on all the brakes) are good, it may be that the front master cylinder isn't properly sized for the extra slave (caliper) piston area of the stock brakes plus the hack brake. Not sure of the availability of larger than stock master cylinders. Rear brakes are sometimes sized to be a little "mushy" to help prevent brake lockup on deceleration. I'm not sure how a stock brake should feel on a 1500 Goldwing -hopefully someone will chime in.
Can you lock up the brakes (say in a parking lot at about 20 mph)? If you can, the brakes are generating as much force as the tires have traction. Brake feel is a different story.
Thanks, the pads are new. The brakes do stop it reasonable well, but the hand lever will go to the grip. The brakes are full engaged at that point. I agree that a larger master cylinder may be the answer, but am not aware of one. I hope maybe someone has found one that will work.
We use to deal with the GL1500 master by rebuilding it and over boaring it from the stock 1/2 inch to 5/8 inch. It is a real pain to do as the supply and return holes need to be sealed and relocated. We can still do this $250 however for the last several years we have been instead hooking the brake up using a double banjo bolt at the rear calipar. Another opion is you can run the master off of a GL1800 which is 5/8 inch to start with. The only down side to the GL1800 master is it is a different color and the hose comes out different but it fits fine. No matter how much bleading you do or pads you change the stock master just does not have the capacity to work both with out them being mushy.
Jay G
DMC sidecars
www.dmcsidecars.com
866-638-1793
ThnaksJay. The GL1800 master cylinder sounds like the route for me. I don't care about the color our rerouting the hoses. Does the mounting require any mods? I was realtivley sure that the problem was the master cyl. not being large enough to handle the load. I appreciate the help. This sounds like a better cure than using the rear caliper, because they also do not feel overly stong. Thanks again. Jim
