Smoking Brake Rotor

[Jaime Cardenas]

Hi,

Last week I was practicing at Cherry Valley and after 10 or so laps when I came back to the pits, the brake rotor was smoking and making sounds as it cooled down. I have a Rotax on a CRG Kali with Ven 99 brakes. Is this normal? Is the brake rotor supposed to get that hot or smoke?

Thanks.

[tony zambos]

Jaime,

In a word, NO.  A couple of causes, the axle shifted and the rotor was dragging on a pad, or the rotor hub had shifted.  The should be equal clearance on both sides of the rotor to the pads. If that’s not it, could you be resting your foot on the brake pedal?  And there is a chance that one of the brake pistons got stuck.  Let us know what you find.

Please that this problem seriously as you could run out of brakes or the rotor could fail sending chuncks of metal at your fellow karters.

 

LAD Specialties customer / tony kart / rotax / kt100

[Jaime Cardenas]

Thanks for the reply Tony. I checked and the rotor doesn’t rub the brake pads unless I press the pedal. However, on side of the pads is closer to the rotor than the other. Also, on that same side the pad is worn at a bit of an angle. What do you think? Am I dragging the brake pedal while driving?

Thanks,

Jaime

[Ron]

My son had similar problem.  I had adjusted everything before he drove and everything measureed within tolerance.  When he came in it was smoking.  I checked everything again and everything measured within tolerance.  Thinking he was riding the brake a bit I put some more freeplay in the pedal.  Thus if he set his foot on the pedal it did not even start to move the pads until it went in about 1 inch.  He came back in the next session with no problem.

I found out after the fact that he had actually spun out a couple of times in the first session because the brakes were too responsive.  (The track he was at has a large portion that is not visible from the stands.)  the brake adjustment helped his driving, and he was not burning the pads.

[Matt Dixon]

You should be able to grab the axle next to the rotor and it should not be to hot to hold. If it is you are either on the brakes to much or trail braking to much. So smoking rotor is a serious wrong…

94y

[Walt Gifford]

If you press harder on the brakes it will lock the rear axle and there will be less friction and heat between pads and disk, just lift before your engine clutch lets go or your motor won’t re-start.

The other thing you can try is just stop riding the brakes so far into the turn.

Gif

FAA certified jet engine and aircraft technician,
Nicholson Speedway class champion 2001,
Yamaha KT100 Service Center,
41 years karting experience

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