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AApple

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Location
Duncanville, Texas
My Bike Models
1981 GL1100 Innerstate("The Turd")SOLD!!, 1996 GL1500 Innerstate
...I have to call BS on them. I've always heard, here, and other places, that you can NOT turn these Oldwing stainless steel brake rotors on a brake lathe. I'm here to tell you they CAN be done, and quite nicely at that. I have my front and rear rims at the shop to clean them, so I decided to go ahead and see if I could successfully turn the rotors. Have only done the rear one for now, but it cut just fine. I can only do one side at a time, since the lathe cutters will not close down as thin as the bike rotors are, but doing one side at a time did not present any problems. No chattering, no vibrations, no apocalypse....no sky falling. After cutting both sides, I went over it while the lathe was still turning with a Scotchlock disc, spinning in a die grinder to give the surfaces a non-directional finish, meaning it knocks down the "grooves" left from cutting the rotors. I'm very pleased with this one rotor that I have done. I did find that, on this rear rotor, the surface was tapered...the inner surface, close to the center, was thicker than the outer surface closer to the outside edge. The brake pads I remove every time I do pads are also tapered like this...thinner at the top than the bottom. Prolly need to make sure the caliper(s) are square with the rotors when I re-assemble everything, but I'm absolutely certain my rear brake will now work like it's supposed to...even tho I rarely ever use it anyway.
So....just to recap, I was able to turn at least the rear rotor, and it came out fine. I'll see how the front ones do tomorrow. :eek:k:




 
There is a small area on the outer edge of one side of this rotor that I dint feel I needed to completely cut, so there is a very narrow, low "ring" around the outside on the one side. I just cut it until I was happy....that small circle won't make much difference, imho.
I'll do the fronts tomorrow. The stainless does NOT cut like cast iron...I'll give ya that. It cuts a loooooooong ribbon. What winds up in the garbage looks like a huge Brillo pad! :yes:
 
Well SS rotors are different and don't grind well on car rotor turning machines but on a lathe should do fine. If they aren't warped the use of angle grinders does just fine removing glaze and resurfacing.
 
[url=https://classicgoldwings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=166987#p166987:29y00748 said:
slabghost » Mon Jan 25, 2016 9:22 pm[/url]":29y00748]
... don't grind well on car rotor turning machines but on a lathe should do fine.

:headscratch:
Ya lost me there, V. I'm using a regular brake lathe to do these. At any rate, it's doing otay for me.

I got both the front ones done already this mernin. One of them was a little troublesome, because it has a hot spot right in the center on one side....the cutter did do some dancing and chatterin in that spot, but the rest of it worked well. The brakes on the bike should be a little more trustworthy now...or that's the idea, anyway. Heck...I might even start using the rear brake now.... :smilie_happy:
 
Key word is lathe. Machines we used to use at least around here were more like powered lazy susan plates with a cup style grindstone doing the work. which left the nice swirl for the pads to grab. Rotors lay on them horizontally.
 
I machined all 3 rotors on my '75 in my shop. I made a fixture to bolt them to mimic them being bolted to the wheel and then just faced both sides till they were true. Not a problem. I mean, the rotors were manufactured and turned on a lathe originally so why not. The only issue I would say Joel is take a good look at that low spot. When I did the rear rotor on the '75 it was .002" out of parallel and you could feel it every time you used the brake. It worked perfectly, just you could feel the difference thru the whole bike.
 
[url=https://www.classicgoldwings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=167005#p167005:k3mndop1 said:
Dusterdude » 50 minutes ago[/url]":k3mndop1]
Would you like to do 3 more?
My thoughts exactly!
 

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