Honda PCX (150) Linked Brakes

[silverantec]

1stly my search showed nothing on this so forgive me if I missed it.
I have a 150 pcx and have done a few changes to it which necessitated removal of all the body panels. (This may be subject of another later post).
I have separated the Linked Brake System. My right brake lever now operates only the front brake using all pistons in it and my left brake lever now operates only the rear brake.

I would like to advise all pcx riders that I have discovered something I did not know from my test ride in which I thought the brakes were quite ok. The rear brakes are beyond pathetic. I was amazed at how useless it is. You can squeeze the lever until it is against the handlebar and all you do is slow down gently.

Walking beside the bike engine off pushing it and squeeze hard you cannot lock up the rear wheel. My scooter is less than 12 months old with 3000 klm on it. I had to have the rear wheel replaced as a warranty item as it was warped in the drum causing uneven (jerky) braking. I did not test ride it, just picked it up. When I got home I rang them and it took a lot of pressure from me to make them rectify the fault but they did. So I have not myself interfered with the rear wheel or brake.

I separated the linked brakes because I do not like someone else determining how much braking I am using on corners or wet roads. I assumed they would have tried to work it out to be a reasonable ratio but I was so wrong. You think with the linked brakes when you use the left lever the rear wheel should be doing most of the work and you add a little more pressure when you use the right lever. WRONG.

The rear brake was doing almost nothing. With the right lever I was just letting the front brake work harder thinking I was balancing the use for stability. My warning to other is Your Front Brake is basically doing all the work so be careful of how you use brakes on corners and wet roads or loose road surfaces.

I love the scooter & do not mean to bag it but if you cannot lock up the rear wheel when you have separated them as I have then there is no way you can get maximum braking effort when you need it. Normal motorbikes never seem to have this problem (with rear drum). I have ridden a few. They lock up ok when asked to. You cannot alter the adjustment as you must squeeze the lever a certain amount to start the engine but you can tell that as you squeeze the lever harder it gives no added braking. It just has nothing more to give in standard setup.

At 1000 klm I assumed maybe I still need to bed the linings in more as I am a gentle rider and think ahead to minimize brake use. The front brakes by the way are fine. I feel no need for a bigger disc or any other change. I use the scooter for both local and long distance and refuse to exceed 90 kph preferring 80 to 85 as my cruising speeds. It would be a costly exercise to fit a rear disc & caliper but is looking like my only option if I want to have maximum braking for that emergency one day. I post this only as a warning to others. Please take care on wet/slippery cornering.

[Oyabun]

I see two options to convert to disc at the rear of the pcx.
1, buy a disc prepped hub, rear swingarm, brake caliper, line and master cylinder and lace a spoked wheel to the rear. I've seen these kits available in Indonesia for a few hundred thousand rupiahs while I was there.
2, buy the same from the rear of a Forza125. That wheel is essentiallyvthe same as the PCX, but wider, so it can accomodate 140/70r14 rubber. This option can set you back with about 700EUR easily if bought new.
Third option is to learn living with it. At least you know now that you will not lock up the rear even in slippery road conditions.

[homie]

Had not noticed the rear wheel not locking up on PCX. You do know this was the basis for anti-lock technology right? A non-skidding tire stops shorter and more controlled than one that locks up. Now I will have to go out and try to lock up the rear to see this feature for myself. That said, I've been out on my street bike all morning and twice today I've squirrel'ed the rear trying not to run a yellow. Now that you mention it I've never had the rear get away from me on the PCX ... um, I think I like that but I dont' ride your conditions assuming you live in the UK where riders are the best and bravest in the world. Put your location when you get a chance

[silverantec]

G'day Homie & Oyabun. Thanks for the reply's. I live in Australia. I am not desperate yet to change the rear brake setup, just disappointed it is so weak. My real reason for the post is to hopefully save someone from an accident in a corner particularly if for some reason it is poor traction. I am near 60 and been riding all my life and am a mechanic. Of course I realize the front brake does most of the braking in a emergency stop and under no circumstances do I actually wish to lock up the rear wheel whilst travelling.

My point on noting the fact that you cannot lock them up is simply to illustrate that you are not able to get maximum braking effort from the wheel if you cannot actually push it to lock when actually trying to. (and actually walking the bike, not with my weight on it.) But the other side of what you said Homie is that a wheel that can not give maximum braking just short of locking up will not help you in some emergency stopping situation, which I of course hope not to have but did once have on my cruiser when overtaking behind a overtaking car (around another slower car) when the car in front of me panicked and slammed on the brakes halfway past slower car to pull back in fearing he could not do it. We would have actually both made it safely but I guess he lacked the skill & judgement and I was near rubbing my front tyre on his rear bumper trying to outstop him.

I do not see me overtaking much on the scooter but safety is safety & good brakes help safety. I have seen some of those Indonesian rear discs you mentioned Oyabun also the Forza wheel and inquiries with my dealer to get one since those scooters are not sold in our country were met with a firm and almost nasty never from them. I am patient as well as inventive. When I have finished a couple of comfort things I am up to I might sort something out.
I hope the little picture I have posted actually comes out. I had to shrink it to get it accepted.

[chicaboo]

As part of it's faux ABS qualities, doesn't the CBS system have a valve of sorts to balance pressure applied between the front and rear brakes?
Is it this valve that is curtailing your efforts to lock up the back wheel, since it's trying to proportionate braking pressure back to the front?
If you've correctly bypassed and isolated that (assuming I understand how CBS works?), I guess the drum is just useless for independent braking.

[gn2]

Set up properly the CBS system on the PCX works just fine.
Taking the CBS system to bits then complaining the braking system doesn't work... really?

[lolofigo]

G'day Homie & Oyabun. Thanks for the reply's. I live in Australia. I am not desperate yet to change the rear brake setup, just disappointed it is so weak. My real reason for the post is to hopefully save someone from an accident in a corner particularly if for some reason it is poor traction. I am near 60 and been riding all my life and am a mechanic. Of course I realize the front brake does most of the braking in a emergency stop and under no circumstances do I actually wish to lock up the rear wheel whilst travelling.

My point on noting the fact that you cannot lock them up is simply to illustrate that you are not able to get maximum braking effort from the wheel if you cannot actually push it to lock when actually trying to. (and actually walking the bike, not with my weight on it.) But the other side of what you said Homie is that a wheel that can not give maximum braking just short of locking up will not help you in some emergency stopping situation, which I of course hope not to have but did once have on my cruiser when overtaking behind a overtaking car (around another slower car) when the car in front of me panicked and slammed on the brakes halfway past slower car to pull back in fearing he could not do it. We would have actually both made it safely but I guess he lacked the skill & judgement and I was near rubbing my front tyre on his rear bumper trying to outstop him.

I do not see me overtaking much on the scooter but safety is safety & good brakes help safety. I have seen some of those Indonesian rear discs you mentioned Oyabun also the Forza wheel and inquiries with my dealer to get one since those scooters are not sold in our country were met with a firm and almost nasty never from them. I am patient as well as inventive. When I have finished a couple of comfort things I am up to I might sort something out.
I hope the little picture I have posted actually comes out. I had to shrink it to get it accepted.

G'day
How can you get all pistons in front calliper to work together? I was thinking about that but piston that operates with rear brake has smaller diameter so it would pop out further than the two bigger ones wits same amount of brake fluid from brake pump. Have you got pictures of your set up? Just use the forum on tapatalk app so you can post full fat pictures without resizing.


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[Alibally]

I can't understand why people muck about with braking systems. Fitting bigger discs and uprated pads I can understand but to tamper with a system that Honda probably spent a load of cash developing and works fine seems daft to me.


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[kramnala58]

Tampering with the brake system as you have would make me wonder if there is a chance of being held liable in the case of an accident or if your insurance company might try to get out of paying any claims, if it was learned that the brakes had been messed with. You might want to keep that mod to yourself if you are unfortunate enough to be in an accident.

[Mel46]

This thread is quite interesting to me. I have not tried to separate the two brakes but when I squeeze the left brake lever with the bike up on its center stand the rear wheel will not spin, and does seem to be locked. I am thinking that Chica boo might have a point. Maybe the valve affects the rear brake more than you suspect?

[Oyabun]

G'day
How can you get all pistons in front calliper to work together? I was thinking about that but piston that operates with rear brake has smaller diameter so it would pop out further than the two bigger ones wits same amount of brake fluid from brake pump. Have you got pictures of your set up? Just use the forum on tapatalk app so you can post full fat pictures without resizing.

The two pistons operated by the front brake lever are not equal sized either. The leading one is roughly 26mm and the other is 22 mm - to give the pad a tendency to contact the trailing side first and leading later reducing drag and improve brake modulation. The middle piston which is operated by the CBS is equal with the smaller of the two. Given this I would not be overly concerned about the different piston diameters.

[pcx man]

I stopped fast 2 days ago and the rear wheel on my 2013 PCX skidded. Also my parking brake holds great as long as the rear brake is adjusted correctly. You can not push it without skidding the rear tire.

[Alibally]

This thread is quite interesting to me. I have not tried to separate the two brakes but when I squeeze the left brake lever with the bike up on its center stand the rear wheel will not spin, and does seem to be locked. I am thinking that Chica boo might have a point. Maybe the valve affects the rear brake more than you suspect?

It might lock when there's no load on it but if there's 125kg bike and a 75kg person on it doing 60 mph it'll not lock so easily.



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[lolofigo]

G'day
How can you get all pistons in front calliper to work together? I was thinking about that but piston that operates with rear brake has smaller diameter so it would pop out further than the two bigger ones wits same amount of brake fluid from brake pump. Have you got pictures of your set up? Just use the forum on tapatalk app so you can post full fat pictures without resizing.

The two pistons operated by the front brake lever are not equal sized either. The leading one is roughly 26mm and the other is 22 mm - to give the pad a tendency to contact the trailing side first and leading later reducing drag and improve brake modulation. The middle piston which is operated by the CBS is equal with the smaller of the two. Given this I would not be overly concerned about the different piston diameters.

I've got 2012 pcx 125 and two pistons operating on front lever look the same haven't mesured them if they same diameter but middle one that operates with CBS is significantly smaller.

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[you you]

This thread is quite interesting to me. I have not tried to separate the two brakes but when I squeeze the left brake lever with the bike up on its center stand the rear wheel will not spin, and does seem to be locked. I am thinking that Chica boo might have a point. Maybe the valve affects the rear brake more than you suspect?

Are you spinning the front?

There just reasonably well engineered scooter brakes, not exciting, or dangerous or lethally imbalanced.

Purposeful, if mediocre, prices of engineering that do their job properly and only that.

Good on them.

[Mel46]

I didn't try the front brake. I was mainly interested in the function of the rear as I know from experience that the front can be locked. Sin e both of my bikes are in the basement right now I just went down there and spun the rear wheel. Then I grab the left brake lever and the wheel stopped dead. In fact, I couldn't move it while holding the left brake lever. I am sure that there will be some difference in this capacity if I were riding it at the time because when we had our accident I had to lock the brakes at 45 mph. It isn't fun to do that. I wish the bike had better brakes, but as was pointed out, this is an inexpensive bike that gets the job done.
My Burgman 400 had disc brakes in front and back and could stop so much quicker than the little PCX. Still, you buy it for cheap, economical transportation and that is what it is meant for. The Burgman has ABS as an optional version at a total of $8,000. The PCX does not, but it is only $3499. If it was $4,000 and came with disc brakes, would buy it...but it doesn't.

[dasshreddar]

1stly my search showed nothing on this so forgive me if I missed it.
I have a 150 pcx and have done a few changes to it which necessitated removal of all the body panels. (This may be subject of another later post).
I have separated the Linked Brake System. My right brake lever now operates only the front brake using all pistons in it and my left brake lever now operates only the rear brake.

I would like to advise all pcx riders that I have discovered something I did not know from my test ride in which I thought the brakes were quite ok. The rear brakes are beyond pathetic. I was amazed at how useless it is. You can squeeze the lever until it is against the handlebar and all you do is slow down gently.

Walking beside the bike engine off pushing it and squeeze hard you cannot lock up the rear wheel. My scooter is less than 12 months old with 3000 klm on it. I had to have the rear wheel replaced as a warranty item as it was warped in the drum causing uneven (jerky) braking. I did not test ride it, just picked it up. When I got home I rang them and it took a lot of pressure from me to make them rectify the fault but they did. So I have not myself interfered with the rear wheel or brake.

I separated the linked brakes because I do not like someone else determining how much braking I am using on corners or wet roads. I assumed they would have tried to work it out to be a reasonable ratio but I was so wrong. You think with the linked brakes when you use the left lever the rear wheel should be doing most of the work and you add a little more pressure when you use the right lever. WRONG.

The rear brake was doing almost nothing. With the right lever I was just letting the front brake work harder thinking I was balancing the use for stability. My warning to other is Your Front Brake is basically doing all the work so be careful of how you use brakes on corners and wet roads or loose road surfaces.

I love the scooter & do not mean to bag it but if you cannot lock up the rear wheel when you have separated them as I have then there is no way you can get maximum braking effort when you need it. Normal motorbikes never seem to have this problem (with rear drum). I have ridden a few. They lock up ok when asked to. You cannot alter the adjustment as you must squeeze the lever a certain amount to start the engine but you can tell that as you squeeze the lever harder it gives no added braking. It just has nothing more to give in standard setup.

At 1000 klm I assumed maybe I still need to bed the linings in more as I am a gentle rider and think ahead to minimize brake use. The front brakes by the way are fine. I feel no need for a bigger disc or any other change. I use the scooter for both local and long distance and refuse to exceed 90 kph preferring 80 to 85 as my cruising speeds. It would be a costly exercise to fit a rear disc & caliper but is looking like my only option if I want to have maximum braking for that emergency one day. I post this only as a warning to others. Please take care on wet/slippery cornering.

I totally agree the CBS system is crap... no that they are separated try adjusting the rear drum, on my pcx the rear alone worked decent. (but the forza rear alone is freakin awesome ( if a forza 300 rear disc swap ever becomes available for a pcx, BUY IT)).

[Oyabun]

I've got 2012 pcx 125 and two pistons operating on front lever look the same haven't measured them if they same diameter but middle one that operates with CBS is significantly smaller.

Yours might be different, but I've only seen calipers like the one on the picture, and on these the two identical pistons are the trailing edge of the front brakes, and the center which is linked to the CBS.
The larger one is the leading edge of the front caliper. Mind you the two outer ones look identical from the casting side, but the piston diameters are different. Also the parts catalog supports this.

[lolofigo]

I've got 2012 pcx 125 and two pistons operating on front lever look the same haven't measured them if they same diameter but middle one that operates with CBS is significantly smaller.

Yours might be different, but I've only seen calipers like the one on the picture, and on these the two identical pistons are the trailing edge of the front brakes, and the center which is linked to the CBS.
The larger one is the leading edge of the front caliper. Mind you the two outer ones look identical from the casting side, but the piston diameters are different. Also the parts catalog supports this.

You might be right then. I was thinking about linking all three pistons together when replacing brake pipe with steel braided one. Just putting a short line with two banjos on both ends and longer pin like setup on sport bikes with two discs on front wheel and some long brake cable from GY6 for rear brake. I don't need CBS as I'm using both levers for braking anyway. Quite vigorously that is. Looks like new project coming.

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[Oyabun]

I've got 2012 pcx 125 and two pistons operating on front lever look the same haven't measured them if they same diameter but middle one that operates with CBS is significantly smaller.

Yours might be different, but I've only seen calipers like the one on the picture, and on these the two identical pistons are the trailing edge of the front brakes, and the center which is linked to the CBS.
The larger one is the leading edge of the front caliper. Mind you the two outer ones look identical from the casting side, but the piston diameters are different. Also the parts catalog supports this.

You might be right then. I was thinking about linking all three pistons together when replacing brake pipe with steel braided one. Just putting a short line with two banjos on both ends and longer pin like setup on sport bikes with two discs on front wheel and some long brake cable from GY6 for rear brake. I don't need CBS as I'm using both levers for braking anyway. Quite vigorously that is. Looks like new project coming.

I was also thinking about installing a direct brake cable to the back, but it will not make much difference. The front part of the CBS can be entirely disabled easily, by adjusting in the limiter screw to a point where the hydraulic MC does not even engage while pulling the left hand side lever. It sounds more difficult than it is really.
A short brake hose with banjos could be an option, but I was actually thinking about to drill from the centre chamber to one of the sides (the larger bore seems ro be the better candidate because of access) and close off the holes of the CBS connector. I have an extra caliper to work on once I'll have some time during the winter. But the increased chamber volume might mean that I'll have to change the front master cylinder also to provide a better feel on the brakes - there I'm eyeing a used radial MC from one of the newer bikes.
Another option would be to install a used left side 4 pot caliper from a cbr600 and live happy ever after.
Nevertheless, I'm quite happy with my 260mm disk, sintered pads, braided lines, adjustable levers combo front setup as for now.