Performance Machine Touring Brake Install

There I was on the shores of Australia riding on the left side of the road, with Glenn Priddle, and wondering how to turn. The highbar Evo Road King rumbled along the curvy roads like butter. We cruised along the same cliffs Captain Cook gawked at as he pulled up to Noosa, on the Australian coastline in 1770. Noosa is a wild joint made up of convicts who escaped a penal colony in Brisbane and hauled ass north in 1827. Most of the blokes I met looked like drifters, with shifting eyes, and their hands constantly poised above long Aboriginal knives, a frightening crew.

I watched my back closely as we stopped at a pub for a dark beer. I remembered the stories Pat Kennedy told me of coming to Australia and how the bikers fight at the drop of a feather, a wrong wisp of cigarette smoke or the slightest giggle from a woman. I snapped my Beretta pocket knife open an inch from the long nose belonging to the parton next to me and used it as a toothpick while glaring around the saloon filled with aging senior tourists. I gave ‘em my baddest expression.

We were on our way to Mike’s Customs to replace the King’s warped stock front brakes with sharp polished PM floating rotors and 6-piston calipers. The front brake lever drifted in and out as the old, dual-system, brake pads tried to find their way along the stock H-D surface, either damaged in a minor accident or from heat.

Performance Machine’s Differential Bore Calipers Explained—Official Description

PM four and six piston Differential Bore Calipers were created to increase braking power and feel at the lever, by controlling the uneven pad wear generated by greater concentration of heat at the rotor entry edge of the brake pad. By reducing the piston size (and force) at the disc entry and increasing the piston size at exit, heat built up during braking is evenly distributed throughout the pad surface. This not only controls uneven pad wear, but also keeps the entire pad surface at a constant friction level.

Mike’s Shop.

We pulled into Mike’s shop, a block structure off the side of a main road in Noosa something. There’s Noosa heads, Noosa Bay, Noosa Island, Noosa Girls and Noosa Heads. Just the thought of that title gave me the shakes, and the gang of ruffians at Mike’s spurred the notion to throw my knife away and look for a pipe wrench—a long one. The group who came out of the shop to meet us was formidable. Mike, the angry German, the owner, was as big as me and his main man was a 20 year member of the Australian Gypsy Jokers, Mick. He was bigger than both Mike, me and Glenn, my riding partner and Bikernet Australian Correspondent.

They didn’t fuck around, but went right to work on other projects leaving Glenn and I with a lift and a pair of rusting pliers. We jacked up the front end and loosened the axle nut, removed the axle nut, loosened the cap on the right leg, removed the axle and the rotors.

Since it was a used King, Glenn just bought, we thought it best to pull the seals and check the Timken wheel bearings. We used a large long screwdriver to remove the seals gingerly, especially if we planned to reuse them. Hell, I was on an island. I didn’t know what they had in stock.

Here’s the old bearing, seal, outside spacer and wheel bearing spacer.

Glenn learned a new technique for packing grease in bearings. He put a wad of grease in his palm and slapped it with the bearing, driving the grease between the rollers.

We discovered a stack of shims in the wheel for bearing spacing. Mike tested the fit and we pulled a couple of thin shims for the proper spacing, which I believe is .010-.015 inches.

Mike has a puller for yanking the Timken races, but mag wheels pose a particular problem. They don’t allow the puller much of a lip to grasp. Mike suggested that we inspect the races. If they weren’t damaged we could replace only the bearings and move on. Timken bearings come as matched sets, so there’s some question there, but we decided that his experience won out. We checked the races. They were clean and we replaced the bearings with freshly packed bearings.

Here’s the puller that didn’t work in this application. We we’re cool.

Then we loosened the stock caliper Allen fasteners and brake lines. It’s not a bad notion to replace the fluid in the system during this process with fresh DOT 5. Keeping everything loose we checked the fit of the new PM calipers. In many respects this is an extremely simple operation. The PM calipers and rotors are designed, engineered and manufactured as replacement products, but there’s always more. Checking the bearings, the end play on the axle spacer, the fasteners to make sure nothing rubs, replacing brake fluids, hydraulic brake lines, caliper centering adjustment over the rotor, are all delicate moves to insure proper braking for thousands of future miles.

First we noticed that some of the caliper installation bolts, supplied with the Performance Machine components, hit the rotor. We needed to adjust, maybe grind a thread or two off the Allen fastener. With the shims available we spaced the caliper centered over the rotor, and the bolt slipped into place and let and the rotor spin without a problem. We didn’t tighten anything without checking first. We should have worked with the shims right away, centering the calipers.

These show the front and back of the two-piece rotors from Peformance machine. They weren’t floating rotors, but good looking jobs. Most of their current two-piece rotors are floating. We checked that the fasteners were tight. At one point we thought they weren’t sitting flat but they were.

We ran into two problems. For some reason the right rotor didn’t set flat the first time and gave us a false indication. We loosened all the fasteners, took if off, made sure the wheel mating surface was square and clean and put it back together. Much better.

We used a dial indicator to check the run-out. Next we ran into a problem with the brake lines. They were too short. Fortunately we could lower the Goodrich hydraulic junction under the bottom tree and space it down. Unfortunately we ended up spacing it down over an inch. We all thought we had plenty of space above the fork travel, but ultimately that wasn’t the case and it smacked the fender. Glenn ended up replacing the lines and correcting the problem, but not before we rode to a Buddahist temple deep in the tropical hills to pray for surf. The big advantage of moving up to a 6 piston caliper was additional stopping power and reduced effort at the lever. More pad equaled more friction. It was especially noticable with a big bike like this bagger.

This Goodrich bar was dangerously close to the top of the front fender.

The finished puppy, with Performance Machine gold.

Even the Australian girls are tough.

Mike's been working his business in Rene Street for 15 years or so. Does anything from tyre changes full services, to full on custom builds. Plenty of custom parts and accessories on hand, and if he hasn't got it, he'll soon track it down for you–always a good place to drop in have a chat.   

Mike's Custom Shop
Unit 5/54 Rene Street,
Noosaville.
Queensland. 4566.
Australia.
PH. 0754499555.

The finished King outside the Buddahist Temple.

When we rode the Road King up the coast and thru the cane fields to Mike's shop I was experiencing fading stock brakes. We left Mike's with dual 6-piston PM brakes and raced up the range, on and off the brakes, “Just the two of us having a bit of a run on a couple of choppers on a desolate narrow country road,” Glenn said. It was filled with twists and turns, slamming up the hill, just before Glenn ran out of gas.

We visited the Buddahist temple and Kelly, the master machinist, who works on Vincents. Then we cut back down the mountain where good brakes were essential, and I had the best, plus duals.