So it turns out all I needed to fix the front brakes on my Japanese sport bike was a set of English bike brakes… yea that makes sense. I did some digging and found out that Yamaha used 83mm bolt spacing on these bikes for the calipers, which was kind of the end of the line for that spacing, meaning the stock calipers were about the best you could get, apart from some hard to find ones that came on some fzr400’s. Anywho, in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, triumph used some brakes produced by nissin and rebranded that utilized 83mm bolt spacing. I found a set with a master on eBay off of a tt600, and they bolted right up, offset and all. The bike now stops very nicely, though I think I’m still fighting some air in the system somewhere. One of the calipers seems to be dragging a bit too, so a rebuild is probably on the agenda, and I figure with rebuilt calipers and a vacuum bleed, I’ll be in a good spot. I haven’t decided if I want to remove the triumph logo or not, it does look kind of dumb imo, but I also find it quite amusing haha.
So for any other fz or fzr400 genesis guys out there, as well as I think pretty much all of the bikes in this era and size class from Yamaha, if you’re looking for a set of these, you want something from late 90’s to early-mid 2000’s triumphs, models 955i, tt600, and maybe a couple others. There’s info on some other forums out there as well, but I think as long as they look like these, they should work.
Now, I do still want to do the front end swap on this bike, but this at least makes it rideable, and now I can save this front end for another project down the road and have a set of working brakes good to go. I was able to ride it with a but more vigor now that the brakes work, and after tightening everything down and doing bolt checks, I can confidently say- it kind of rides like shit. I mean, this is my first sport bike experience, and I do understand that it isn’t gonna be very good on crappy Minnesota city streets, and it’s not the most comfortable bike etc, but it feels rather unstable to me, and doesn’t track very well going down the road. I think some of this can be chalked up to the 10 year old bald tires, and I’m thinking stuff like steering stem bearings and stuff is the rest of it, but if any of you gurus out there think I might be just an idiot and I’m missing something blatant, please impart your wisdom.
Anyway, I’m pretty happy. This bike will probably be a side project for me for most of college until I can afford to do it all the right way , but right now I have a running and riding 80’s sport bike in my garage, and that’s just too damn cool to me.
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