DIY - Changing the Disk Pads

Last time i had to change my disk pads of my front disk brake in my pulsar 220 I ended up paying 150 bucks for the disk pads and 150 bucks as labour charge just to change the pads! Then I thought why not I myself do some work and save some bucks. With some little clues from the internet I was able to do it myself. So here is the procedure to do it yourself.

Note:

• This method works perfectly on the Pulsar 220 front brake. The procedure may be similar for other brands.
• Please do it at your own risk. I did the disk pad change twice so far and I didn't face any issues though.
• Click the images below to view a larger picture.

1. Remove the bolts, marked red in below photo, that hold the caliper. You would need a size 12 spanner. A ring spanner would not damage the bolts so try buying one if you dont have those.

2. Now slide out the caliper off the disk smoothly.

3. Now remove the clip that retains the pin shown in the picture. You would need a plier to remove the clip.

4. Pull out the pin that holds the pads in place.

5. Now the pads will drop out freely. Disk pads have grooves that serve as an idicator about the usable life of the pad. In the below photo the pad on the left is a new pad and the pad on the right is the old one. Notice the groove is almost vanished on the old one which means its time to change the pad.

6. Clean the caliper insides using a brush and keroscene. Dirt usually gets clogged around the pistons(marked in the photo below) and it could affect braking. So cleaning it whenever changing pads is recommended.

7. In the above picture the pistons have almost come out. The pistons need to be pushed in to make room for the new pads. To do this keep one of the pad on top of the pad and push against the pad so that the pistons retract. I dont have a photo of the retracted piston.

8. Now position the new pads in the caliper and put back the pin that you removed in step 4

9. Now put back the clip that you removed in step 3.

10. Now slide the caliper back on to the disk, by gently positioning it such a way that the pads are on either side of the disk.

11. Bolt the caliper back on to the fork.

Thats it! Hope this helped. By the way, thanks to Rubert for allowing me to take the photos while he did the work.

God bless you.

KTM's 125cc street bike!

Finally its on the magazines that KTM DUKE 125 will be made in India! Its a great news that Motorcycle manufacturing gets outsourced to India aswell. If you are wondering when this bike will be available for the indian biker to buy, the aswer seems to be no, atleast for now. KTM has made this bike for the European market, news say. Motorcycle market is booming with new models with international quality every now and then. I wonder why this Duke should not be sold in India.

Coming to the Specs of KTM 125, the bike has 15PS of power and torque of 12NM @ 8000RPM. Now thats sounds like a fun bike to me.

Now coming to intresting part for the Indian bikers, is that  a KTM 200 would be made in India and be sold in the Indian market aswell. This would be a naked street bike. Im guessing this would be a good competitor for other bikes such as the Pulsar 220, Karizma, R15. From the price point it would be a good competitor for our CBR 250R and the Ninja 250R.

KTM bikes are expensive. Hopefully making them in India would bring costs down. Its very exciting to see more options in the market now. Hopefully we'll have more motorcycle models would be made in India and made for India.