Two Wheels Better

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Number of posts : 4695
duck wrote:And whatever you do don't ride a paralever K very far with a sticking rear brake. It can heat the rotor up enough that it will ignite the rubber boot on the swing arm and then you'll have a nice little rubber fire to deal with.

I know this to be true as I was on my newly-rebuilt R1100RS (essentially the same design Paralever swingarm/final drive as a K1100RS) and was out for the first ride, ripping along I-84 in Portland OR, where I lived at the time, when I noticed the bike gradually feeling sluggish. I pulled off the first available exit and had a quick squiz at the back end. The boot was smoldering, the disc as red as a Texas Republican on election day. With luck I was 100 yards away from a riding mate's house. I rolled into his driveway, banged on the front door and asked for a fire extinguisher. The flames were licking the swingarm and the boot had all but melted away. I gave it a quick burst of retardant. The rear disc was still glowing red. I turned the adjustment screw to free up the m/c and rode home to swap the boot for a new one, with my tail between my legs.
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1970 R60/5, '77 R75/7-R100, '85 K100, '87 K75C, '87 K100RS, '93 K11-K12 Big Block, '93 K1100RS, '95 R100-Mystic, '96 K1100RS, '98 K1200RS, '00 K1200RS, '02 K1200RS, '03 K1200GT, '04 R1150R, '04 R1150RT, '05 K1200S, '06 K1200R, '07 K1200R, '09 K1300GT, 2013 R1200RT-P & 2022 S1000XR
"We take our bearings, daily, from others. To be sane is, to a great extent, to be sociable."
~John Updike.