GT550J 4LS front brake shoe source

[derekstudt]

I recently started looking for sources for brake shoes for my 4LS front brake on my GT550J. I've found plenty of sites that claim to have brake shoes in stock, but they also say they'll ship in 3-5 business days.

After a bad ordering experience from Partzilla, where they claimed to have a bunch of parts in stock ready ship, only to find out they didn't have many of the parts they claimed to have had and not finding this out until AFTER I paid, I'm leery of ordering from sites that have a scanned fiche of parts with the listing below. I ended up waiting weeks for them to locate some of those "in stock" parts, and turned out to be "NLA". Again, all this was found AFTER placing my order. I'd like to avoid this happening again.

Bike Bandit claims to have them ready to ship in less than 24 hours, but Partzilla said that too before ordering.

I'm not worried about having a Suzuki OEM replacement shoe, I just want reliable and proper sized replacement shoes.

While I'm at it, a suitable rear drum replacement would be helpful too. In a google search, I found EBC makes shoes that fit the rear, I just can't seem to find the front shoes.

Any help or insight is greatly appreciated.

[jabcb]

Paul Miller has a NOS set of 4 shoes for the front brake for $129 on eBay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Suzuki-GT550-GT ... 1251306305

Vintage Brake will re-line your existing shoes with modern brake materials.
http://www.vintagebrake.com/drum.htm

[derekstudt]

Great. Thanks for the info!

[derekstudt]

About how many miles should I be getting out of brake shoes before they need changed? I've got about 14k on my bike currently.

I'm having new tires put on, should I just replace the brake shoes now, because the wheels are off, or am I just throwing money away? Stopping doesn't seem to be bad, I just don't want to take any chances.

[diamondj]

About how many miles should I be getting out of brake shoes before they need changed? I've got about 14k on my bike currently.

I'm having new tires put on, should I just replace the brake shoes now, because the wheels are off, or am I just throwing money away? Stopping doesn't seem to be bad, I just don't want to take any chances.

IMO that depends on how much lining is left on the current shoes and how old they are. If they are 40 year old brake shoes you may want to replace them as there is a chance of the glue between the shoe and the friction material failing over time. It's worth checking. See how much pad material is left when you inspect them. If you are at 194mm across the pads or less, replace them. Here's the service manual page off the resources site:

http://www.oldjapanesebikes.com/mraxl_G ... 50-61.html

Jim

[Alan H]

Brake shoes from the 70s usually had asbestos in them too. That's always good to get shot of.
Modern linings will mean better braking too, but may need skimming to make them work from the get go if you don't want to have to bed shoes in the natural way. If you have a 'real' mechanic's shop near you that does that sort of stuff, they will reline your shoes and skim them on your brake plates to suit the hub you have.