Brakes Apply When Bars Are Left

[Wyberton John]

I have a weird thing happening with my Fazer Thou:

When I am pushing it backwards, if I turn the bars to the left, it seems like the brakes apply. Maybe something is catching somwhere, but I can't see it - hard to look at things whilst pushing the bike!

Brakes are fine otherwise (may not even be the brakes)

I have my MOT this month, so need to get this sorted.

Any ideas?
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Fazer Thou Gen 1

[stinkwheel]

Is the brake lever hitting anything like the fairing or inside of bar muffs? I can't think of anything other than pulling the lever that would make a hydraulic brake come on.

I suppose if there was an odd wear angle on the pads, they could cam-on slightly when move backwards but I wouldn't expect this to be dependant on handlebar position.

I suppose ultimately, they won't be testing your brakes backwards at the MOT so as long as it doesn't do it when you're going forwards...
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Teflon-Mike]

Lol. My first thought on this one, was a woman in a hatch-back leaning out of her window on a mini-round-about, "Well you shouldn't be going so FAST!!!" when she failed to give way to the right, as she should, and I sort of toppled over in-front of her, looking puzzled!
Little elaboration, the bike had been stolen/recovered some while before, and I had looked at the broken fairing and mangled bracketry, priced up replacement bits from Kawasaki, and bought a Power-Bronze after-market full fairing, instead. Kawasaki AR125 has wampy 'split' full fairing as standard... sort of a handlebar bikini-fairing, up top, that sort of pivoted over the top of extended radiator cowlings that sort of looked a bit full;-fairing lower-like! So... the levers clonked on the fairing at full lock... and I vexed the daft bint, cos my uni digs were in a house on the other side of the duel carriageway. and I had to come up the whole stretch, use the mini-round to do a U-Turn and go back down to the house.... so woman wasn't watching for traffic from her 'left' or coming round the round-about, just to her right.... and I took her, very slowly, by surprise, as I had to turn more and more and more, the clutch lever clobbered and I ran out of momentum to hold me up, and had a Whylie Cyote moment, wondering why I was falling! Lol... but still.

Other one was on my Cota-Trials bike, with drum-brake, that always did this, and would roll fine forwards, but 'brake' if you tried to shove it back-wards... little more pertinent, if less humorous. I have, in 30 years NEVER really got to the bottom of that one.... BUT.... very careful adjustment and much muggering was the best I could do.

I even took the wheel out and swapped the brake over side to side, so the wheel effectively rotated the other way to see if it made any difference... it did... a little.

Best guess, and possibly of some influence here. is that when you push forwards, that tends to compress the forks, as you are leaning forwards. Go back-wards, and you tend to extend the forks, pushing taking weight off them... and that 'may' have stretched the brake cable and effected the adjustment, to give them an apparent directional.

But you got hydraulic discs.... so?

Well.. first up, is the round-about suggestion; when you push backwards how are you doing it, where are you looking, and could the lever be being applied?

Next up? Well, you dont have a cable... but, fork lengs still change, look at the adjustment, and possibly do a clean and adjust.

As Stink suggests, its possible that the pads snag when rolling back-wards; sticky pistons, missing. dirty or rusty anti-rattle clips could all aid this.

Drop the caliper of the leg; give it a good and thorough clean and grease, check the state of the pads, check the state of the pistons, check all the pins and clips, clean, grease and put-back together... see how it is after.

Whether MOT man moan or not, it shouldn't drag going back, it ent right, so best to bottom and sort.
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[MarJay]

I absentmindedly started to read Tef's verbal effluent, and from what I can tell it bears no relation to the subject at hand... I suspect a lot of his posts are like this...

My only suggestion for the OP is that a hose is being pinched or something? I'd definitely check the hose routing first of all.
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British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[Wyberton John]

Thanks for the replies and suggestions (and stories...).

Unfortunately, the weather has been a bit of a bugger over the last week and is likely to remain so for the next couple. Already had to do a couple of emergency cover-ups and dashes for overhead relief a few times when working on it (not enough room in my little workshop, where it's normally anchored).

That means I've had little time to have a really good look around it - and this problem only became apparent on Friday.

First off - I thought of the pinched line, but I do have stainless steel braided hoses, so I doubt that would be the case - but it will be the first thing I look at.

Secondly, regarding brake lever vs fairing - I have the standard fairing and the levers are actually closer to the bar than the standard ones, so again, highly unlikely - and I'm sure I would have noticed that.

This is why I'm kerfuffled (that means I haven't got a freakin' clue )

Tomorrow is the only dry day due, so I'll get a good look at it then. I'll report back if I find what the problem is.

The bloke who does the MOT is a really good guy, dedicated biker and really knows his stuff and I will probably ask him before the day, if I don't get it sorted quickly.

Cheers
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Fazer Thou Gen 1

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[Wyberton John]

They're fine and I set them up just nice - and this wouldn't cause the issue I'm having anyway
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Fazer Thou Gen 1

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[Teflon-Mike]

Mull thought: If you are going back'ds, and using full lock; trail on the front wheel tends to get rather perverse. When backing up, with a lot of lock, the front wheel is likely to try going in an arc, almost pivoting around the back, whilst you re trying to push at a tangent, meanwhile, the front wheel is tilted, and shoved side-ways by the fork-rake and axle trail; as you get near to full-lock, the front is as want to go sideways 'under' the bike, and if you is pulling back'ards, it's like trying to steer a way-ward shopping troilley, the 'caster' effectively folded the wrong way...

So are you sure that any resistance when backing up, IS actually the brake dragging, and not you trying to drag the front tyre across the floor, against adverse geometry?

Asside: this is one of the reasons 'proper' manual handling is in CBT and an element of modern Mod1 test, and you are 'supposed' to do any backing up out the saddle, not paddle. Have you tried that, BTW?
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[sickpup]

[Wyberton John]

[Wyberton John]

Okay, then - time to put my "D" hat on and stand in the corner - though it isn't quite as embarassing as it could have been:

Yes, it does happen when it goes forward, because within a foot of moving it I spotted the problem - the brake lever is in fact being pushed - right at the pivot point, on the knuckle.

I've just had the touring screen shroud off to clean under it and when I put it back on, it had to be twisted a little to line up with everything, and I'm guessing it ended up a couple of mm further forward than when I took it off, because it's only pushing the knuckle about 1-2mm, but at that point it's far enough. You can barely even see the lever move.

Bit out of focus, but you can see where:

https://i.postimg.cc/QMKzrjXT/lever2.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/hjF5DNj3/lever1.jpg

Sorted MOT booked - but considering the awful weather we're due this week, it has to be on Friday afternoon (rush hour + through traffic chaos). Oh well...
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Fazer Thou Gen 1

[Polarbear]

[MarJay]

https://media.giphy.com/media/QMcTSC0KJEa4g/giphy.gif
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British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[-]

[Easy-X]

Mmmm.... whenever working on the front of a bike I always try and remember to test extreme lock to see if anything might get snagged
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[Wyberton John]

Oh.... bugger off!

In my defence, I'm an old duffer on a shitload of morphine - I can often not even remember what I did yesterday.

So... back to erm, um..... errr....
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Fazer Thou Gen 1

[andym]

[Wyberton John]

Well, I don't think it's that bad - it's not as if the lever was being shoved back in an obvious way or even very much. Maybe I should have recorded a video to show how little movement there was.

Don't forget, the contact point was right at the pivot point. It was also fine before I'd cleaned the touring screen parts and I'd expect it all to go back on just how it was to start with.

So I don't think it's that big a clanger. I've certainly witnessed far worse ones
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Fazer Thou Gen 1

[Howling Terror]

Dibs on your morphine if you crash and die.
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[Wyberton John]

Sorry, my wife won't give my stuff to dipshits - let alone dipshits she doesn't even know
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Fazer Thou Gen 1