Service life of a brake mastercylinder?

Can anyone tell me if a Brembo radial brake mastercylinder needs to be rebuilt or taken out of service at a certain “age” for safeties sake? I just realized the 19x20 I have been using was second-hand when I bought it, and has been in service for a good 15 years for me personally. No rebuild history.

 

Does it work?

 

As with anything that has rubber components they eventually need replacing.

 

Yes.

 

Exactly ... but when and how? What is an appropriate time interval? How often do they fail in actual use? Do I rebuild or just replace? Google hasn’t been of any use in this matter.

 

Call brembo

 

That I don't know. The manufacturers recommend replacing rubber brake lines every 2 years. I think that would seem like a logical place to start. I would think that could apply to the seals and such.

 

i just figured that pretty much everyone on this forum has or has had a Brembo MC, and might have experience in this matter.

 

I want trying to be a dick it just came to me.

 

Cite please. I believe they recommend inspecting them every 2 years and replacing if any wear or cracking is seen.

 

I wasn’t trying to be “abrasive” either. I will try to contact them.

 

This is from the R6 service manual - it says to replace your brake lines every four years.



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^ well , there ya have it. but, rubber OEM brake lines are exposed to outside weather and UV. seals on brake components? not so much. I honestly hate to think how long my OEM brembo master cyl and the calipers have been in service. I may have replaced them one time in 10 years. Even every 4 years may be overkill for the amount of time a track bike is actually on track.. especially if you are flushing fluid with regularity. it's ust an opinion, and brakes are like, wicked important... do what you think is right. get some good info.

 

I would surely rebuild in that time frame. We do see master cylinder failures in the car world, they aren't that frequent but they also have split systems for somewhat of a redundancy/ failsafe. It's mechanical, it's bound to break at some point, within the allotted time or not.

 

There are people/racers/teams that cycle them out after a couple weekends of racing due to poor performance. I think servicing your unit after 15 years is a pretty decent decision.

They make a rebuild kit, it’s like $50 and half hour of time.

 

I agree. I have only found “crash repair” kits on kurveygirl.com, for example. I thought that liability concerns caused Brembo to not sell full rebuild kits? I’d be curious where they can be obtained...

 

still have to believe a street worthy motorcycle, is gonna be sold with a brake master cylinder that will last a good long while.. even having to stand up to owners that rarely, if ever, change brake fluid. If they were susseptable to such easy failure every few years, we would see a lot more crashes, some quite horrific.

 

If the OEM's thought there was ANY legal risk of injury due to a lack of service, it would be in the maintenance schedule. Just trust me there. To be honest, there probably would be more risk in having the local MC shop technician doing the work and NOT getting it right.

Any proactive maintenance or replacement is always better then waiting for a failure, particularly in racing. Pick a number of year that makes you comfortable, and go with it.

 

So much this. If its in your head already then just go ahead and replace it. You can get a new one for around $250 which is pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things.

 

The way they are designed, when they do fail and start to have issue’s it isunder light pressure. But will typically catch when the rider yanks the lever quickly the second time.

Really see very few failures on bikes considering the neglect. If the fluid is changed regullarly as on a race bike that really helps things a lot. I would still want to replace the seals every couple of years though.