Replacing your brake pads (Part 1)

(11/23/2013) A friend of mine tells me that he won't change his own brake pads for safety reasons: he's afraid he might do something wrong and compromise his safety riding the bike. I don't argue with him. He's entitled to what I consider a reasonable opinion. However, given my experience with Harley-Davidson "technicians," especially this year, I feel a whole lot safer changing my own brake pads.

Changing the pads themselves isn't too difficult, though there are some potential gotchas. You should read your maintenance manual first and watch a video or two before you start. I will include some links in part 2 of this article, when I cover the actual installation of pads. It's important to review multiple sources of information because I noticed each seems to leave something important out, such as what size wrench to use or whether or not to use pad lube.

In part 3 of this series on brake pads, I will discuss brake grease and a bit more about the wear groove in each pad.

Buy pads that fit your bike

The real first step is exploring your options. I started at the parts counter of the local Harley-Davidson dealership and found that $55 per pair for the HD pads was too much to spend without at least a little investigation first. I needed to change my front brakes, and that meant purchasing at least two pairs of pads. I was thus doubly motivated to invest a little time before making a purchase.

I got the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) number for the pads: HD 44082-00D from the friendly man at the HD parts counter. After reading through listings on Amazon and eBay, I discovered that 44082-00C pads would probably work as well, and pads claiming to replace HD 44082-00 in general were likely a safe bet.

Price range

Right away I noticed two issues: (1) the available pads came in multiple materials, and (2) prices varied greatly. It became clear that regarding price, the lower end of the spectrum were Chinese-made products. As I am not trusting my life to products from the Peoples' Republic, I ruled out the cheap pads. That left American and British products. I'm OK with either of those. The Brits have made some outstanding motorcycles over the years, so I feel comfortable buying from them.

Material options

After I decided that I wasn't going to get a decent pair of pads for less than $34 or so, I moved on to my technical options. I had never given my bikes' brake pads this much thought before and was surprised by how much I didn't know. (In the past, I simply bought the OEM pads from the local dealer.) For example, I had never heard of "sintered" pads. I had put ceramic brake pads on my Jeep earlier this year, so I was surprised when ceramic pads weren't even part of the conversation regarding my Harley--at least in the early phase of my research.

Well, after a little more digging I found that some sintered pads are actually ceramic pads with metallic particles sintered into the material.

Pad materials various bikers and vendors cited were

1. sintered (metal);
2. Kevlar (or Carbon-Kevlar);
3. organic; and
4. the OEM semi-metal.

I believe that "organic" actually covers the Carbon-Kelvar category. (Refer to the photo above depicting the backside of the EBC brake pads package for a description of sintered versus organic pads.) Confused yet? Me too; I kind of gave up after a while trying to absorb it all.

Technical characteristics to consider

My next goal was to figure out what these materials represented in terms of the five key technical traits to consider in brake pads:

1. friction coefficient (stopping power)
2. longevity
3. dust
4. quietness (as in not squeaking in wet or dry conditions)
5. effect(s) on the rotors

I was also surprised to discover how often squeaking pads are a problem for people. I can say at least one positive thing for the OEM pads (at $55 per pair): they were quiet. (Here's a little preview: my new EBC pads sqeak a little, but just a little. We'll see if that goes away as they wear in.)

As I do not have wide white walls and I clean my bike regularly anyway, I was not concerned with dust.

What you begin to see if that there are some parallels to tires: you make tradeoffs among these material traits. Like tires, you can get better performance (traction) but you sacrifice longevity. Likewise with brake pads: when you buy the pads that give you greater grip, you sacrifice longevity. Choose what's most important to you and purchase your pads based on those characteristics.

I'm willing to trade off longevity for more stopping power. So, I went with EBC organic pads. I found many positive reviews for EBC pads concerning their ability to grab the rotor effectively. They also apparently treat the Harley rotors very well. (I bought my EBC pads online from J&P Cycles for $33.99 per pair.)

In my next article, I will discuss the process of actually replacing the front pads on my Harley touring bike.

As always, keep the shiny side up ... and pray for a short, mild winter.

-The Long Rider