The original pins in the brembo calipers are corroding and looking unsightly. Stainless steel replacements are about £6 each x 4 (I just bought a set from Shaw stainless on ebay). A M5 x 70mm stainless steel cap head allen screws would make a great cheap alternative (if you have sufficient diy skill to cut them to lenght and drill a hole for the R clip),
"great cheap alternative" You're recommending replacing brake parts with hardware store bolts, in particular stainless which has less strength especially in bolt applications. What exactly are your qualifications to make this recommendation? Do you guarantee 100% that this stainless steel bolt will meet or exceed the design specs of the oem pins? Are you insured to recommend these brake pins to the general public? Can you stand behind this mod with real name and contact info for record? A licensed Ducati tech could never allow a bike with hardware store bolts in place of oem pins to leave the shop so I'm just wondering how this would work. Maybe someone who doesn't fully understand may actually take your advice and end up with sub-standard hardware store bolts in place of proper Brembo brake pins. Dangerous territory.
Like all forum advice, if you are in the slightest bit concerned then ignore this. If you are genuinely interested then consider these points and make your own decision; There are companies that already sell stainless replacements pad retaining pins. There are companies that sell stainless replacements for the bolts that clamp the caliper halves together. And stainless replacements that mount the caliper to the fork (admittedly the above will all be a higher strength than the A2 'hardware store' bolts that I'm recommending, but a long way short of 8.8 high tensile steel - assuming your hardware store sells such an obscure size and you don't have to order from a specialist supplier) Consider direction that load is applied to the pad retaining pin. Consider the method of retention of the pin (Right clip). Consider than the original steel pin will corode and may never get inspected on a neglected bike. And how often someone that is anal enough to even consider the aesthetic appearance of pad retaining pins would inspect their bike. Consider the redundancy (2 pins not just 1) Consider reversing the direction of insertion and securing with a self locking nut to avoid having to drill a hole through the pin. Then make your own mind up.
Precisely what the last two posters have put - the pins are only there to stop the pads falling out of the calipers, they're not there to offer any kind of resistance to braking force or whatever. The stainless pins will be absolutely fine. Nik
never said they take braking force. If people are happy having something that would be highly illegal for a dealer to leave in then go ahead and bodge it up. I doubt the implications are understood.
As a mechanical design engineer the implications are perfectly understood, and I think we need to agree to disagree.
Would these be the same dealers that fit 'track use only' termi exhausts for customers to ride home The MTS1200 and hyper ones are exactly the same but he prices them differently (i guess chris thinks multi owners have more money !) DUCATI HYPERMOTARD 796 STAINLESS STEEL BRAKE CALIPER PAD PIN 612.4.014.1A | eBay mine arrived today. Very nice (but I will make one from a cap head screw for the rear)
I agree with Taskmule. Dangerous territory. Brakes are something i would never bodge with cheap alternative parts. Whether the securing pins are load bearing or not, I would always have the doubt in my mind that they were up to the job, and in the event of an insurance investigation if something went wrong due to brake failure do you think they wouldn't use this as an excuse to not pay out? When you come to replace your bike will you tell the next owner you've fitted cheap alternatives with self drilled holes ?, which will weaken the strength, or are you going to have them hardened? But, each to their own i guess.
My point was not that the hardware store bolt will likely fail, obviously it's not going to break. It's more the nonchalant suggestion to just use anything that seems to fit to save a few bucks. Calipers, being attached to the wheel take more vibration and rattling abuse than any other parts on the bike. All it takes is for the R-clip to fall out of an improperly drilled or sized hole, or for the bolt to break at the off center or oversized hole, and in short order you will have no brake pads. That is how this can go wrong. How many novices can drill a specific sized hole perfectly centered in this size stock and not create a weak spot. Guaranteed this hardware store bolt will not be the same stainless as proper aftermarket or oem pins. Metals don't fail because there's too much force on them as much as when subjected to pounding and vibration. Hey, buy the nice 796 stainless pins, very nice, don't buy cheap hardware store bolts and try to drill a hole in it in the back shed.
Challenge accepted ! I'm must admitted to being stunned by the controversy I've unleashed. I do get the point the Task Mule is making about mindlessly tampering with safety critical parts of a vehicle. As I said earlier, we all get to make our own risk assessment and we have clearly come to very different conclusions on this particular mod.
So come on then - have you struck oil, drilled through to Australia or Just drilled your big toenail?!
So it turns out that whilst I have drill bits small enough I don't have a small enough chuck. Need to order one as I've accepted the challenge (clearly the savings start to diminish at this point!). Unlikely to be an update before next weekend now.
And no it hasn't taken 2 weeks on drilling to do it, but it did take a while. HSS drills don't like stainless, no surprise but I thought I'd give it a go. cobalt drills (TTP in this case) do, but 1mm bits in an adapter with the adapter in a handheld drill don't work (they wobble then snap). 1.5mm bit is a less fragile in the handheld drill with adapter and did work (these are 1.5mm holes). Only broke a single 1mm bit, the 1.5mm did both of these and will do the next two. With a drill press the 1mm cobalt drill would be fine but I gave my drill press to my brother as I didn't have room for it. Will try the 1mm this weekend when I get access to the bench drill, I'm hoping it will be much quicker than the hand drill as well.
