I believe i may have found an effective way to update the Buffalo front brakes without it costing an arm and a leg.
This is of course taking into account you are keeping your bike looking as close to stock but would like some better brakes, especially wet weather brakes.
It appears the rear brake disc from a model of Harley can be altered to fit onto the Buffalos alloy hub.
These rotors are solid to the inner portion with cross drilled holes where the pads grip and are 11 1/2 inches in diameter. They are also very close enough to the stock width of the GT so its not thin like a modern disc.
Its now a case of me getting one i found for cheap and cutting out the inner hole to match the GTs alloy boss, then drilling the holes for the attachments where the rivits were originally.
This is what we will be starting with once its in my possession.
It seems the rear discs fitted to the GSX's (early eighties) have the same mounting boss (inner?) as the discs on my L, i.e. the square-edged hole type.
The actual disc, however, is not heavy hard stainless like the GT discs, is slotted and works well in the wet.
Only fly in the ointment is the slots cut in the disc - as there is only one rear disc on a GS (duh), if you were to use two of these discs on the front of a GT, one of them would have the slots running the opposite way.
I don't reckon this would cause any real braking issue, so if you could live with the look, it would be a relatively cheap upgrade.
Cheers
Paul
Last edited by pjmcburney on Sat Mar 06, 2010 4:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I have a GS rear disc and im trying to get away from the Suzuki material of that time period, its just way to hard and unforgiving for the GT pads.
This looks like it will work out ok when its mounted up given my eyeballing the part i do not have in my possession yet.
The back of the rotor will not change its original position as it will be mounted to the existing GT alloy rotor hub boss once this rotors inner diameter has been cut to match the existing GTs rotor hub boss diameter and hole pattern.
If necessary, I also have a plan for the fixed back pad to bring it forward slightly in the body if the rotor is a bit thinner, but again it looks thick enough or very similar to the GT rotor. This little alteration will require a slight machining to the pads metal backing diameter and a stepped adapter to hold it as an assembly.
The idea is to make sure the piston is fully retracted once the new rotor is mounted with no more than 3mms of clearance to take up at the piston when you initially pump the system for pad contact.
I know a lot of people will say just fit on something else but for the look of keeping the GT disc hub boss and stock calipers on a stock bike this is not going to be an expensive retrofit.
Cost so far, one disc approx $35.00 shipped.
Lane as you noted there are a bunch of combinations out there and the one you mentioned is a good retrofit. There are many others that can be fitted to improve the forks and brakes as well but for this test the thing here is i want to keep the stock calipers in their original position forward of the legs and the alloy boss the oem disc rotor is on.
Only the rotor material itself and different pad compounds will be changed out this at least makes the bike still look stock unless you look too closely at the non shiny rotor disc..
I have a pair of those discs you speak of too, the ones with little half cut slots in the face spiraling around with about six per side and floating rivits.
Those were from the GS1150 model of the early to mid 80s.
The simplest solution for anyone who want to keep the stock appearance but change to a disk material with a higher coefficient of friction, is to do that.
Remove the stock rivets and disk and replace the stainless part with a more modern material.
If Allan's pre-loved disks are a good source of the braking surface, it may be a cheaper option for anyone going down that road that has access to machine shop.
For the rest of us, a disk transplant is the more obvious solution. ( or stay with stock)
perhaps this some thing that I should have done to my old bike and I probably wouldn't have sold it.
the drums were next to useless nearly came a cropper a few times.
that's the trouble riding a modern and old,they just do not mix.
If I wanted to make a life-long career out of
working with the mentally retarded I would
have opened a Harley Davidson Dealership
Tell me about it. I raced a Cb160 and an Aprilia RS250 at the same event a few years ago and boy was that sub optimal. Although the CB was much slower, the braking points were earlier.
Needless to say I kept slowing down too much on the Aprilia and rode even slower than usual.
The differences in acceleration, handling, speed, braking, suspension etc were so huge I couldn't get my brain straight on either bike. I did go much faster on the Cb that I ever did before though because it felt so slow.
