My front brake started acting funny .....

[Scoots]

THANKS for all of the replies!!!

I stopped at the local NAPA store to schedule an oil change for my wife's car. I explained the situation about my "pulsing" disk brake to my mechanic. He suggested starting with the easiest solution first and that was spraying the hell out of the disks and calipers with brake cleaner and then wiping the disk with a clean rag soaked with brake cleaner.

When I got home I laid down some cardboard underneath the tire, as the mechanic suggested, and sprayed the hell out of everything!
WOW!!! The crap flowed out from everywhere, and I just washed and waxed the bike 2 weeks ago!!!

Anyway, the wheel now spins as easily as it had before. I've squeezed on the brake lever a few times and spun the wheel - all good as before. It's been several hours now, I spun the wheel and my wife lightly applied the front brake - no grabbing. I should find out if the pulsing has completely disappeared on my ride in to work tomorrow.

I'll ask this question to the forum as I've been told that "it's normal", and that is the very slight dragging of the calipers on the rotor. Is that normal? When I spin the front wheel I can get around 4 complete revolutions. I would bet that if there was NO drag I could probably get 6 - 7 revolutions.

Your thoughts?

[Major Softie]

Yes, that's normal.

Good luck. My bet is that this will not have fixed your problem, but here's hoping I'm totally wrong.

[Jean]

Scoots, If you will THINK about how disc brakes work, you will logic that the pads must float on the disc when there is no hydraulic pressure applied. There is no mechanism to retract the pads.
That is why the disc must be CLEAN and so must the pads.
SO...that in mind, you ought to get some cardboard and rag about disc thickness, remove the calipers and using the cleaning rig described, CLEAN the pads, too. What ever was on the disc is on the pads.

[Workshop hint: Whenever you remove the calipers, have something disc thickness or a hair fatter to insert in the pad space. I keep some cardboard in a baggie in my tool drawer just for this. Saves a lot of grief later!]