Hello everyone.
Today I'm writing about replacing the brake pad pins on my Honda XR250 BAJA (the Japan-market XR250 / MD30) with aftermarket ones.
On the XR, each brake pad pin is made up of two parts: the pin itself and a plug that covers it (my old Transalp was the same. I wonder if all Hondas are like this?).
This is a design the manufacturer thought through, and using two parts costs more. If they used it anyway, I assume there was a good reason.
But on my old Transalp, the pad pin and its plug had rusted solid, and getting them out was a real struggle.
Regular maintenance would have prevented this, but the Transalp was already in that state when it was given to me...
So, to make the pins as easy to remove as possible, I decided to switch to aftermarket ones.
I fitted DRC stainless replacement brake pad pins.
For the front (the shorter one): DRC D58-33-072, 37 mm, A-type.
For the rear (the longer one): DRC D58-33-074, 52 mm, A-type.
This is how long each pad pin is.
Fitting them is simply a matter of removing the original pad pin and putting the new one in.
The photo above is from the side. The head of the pad pin is a hex.
The photo above was taken looking straight up from underneath the front brake caliper (what you can see in the background is the ceiling).
This is how the pad pin sits.
This is the rear. Like the front, the head is a hex.
I took this one so you can see both the caliper and the pad pin.
While writing this article, it occurred to me that Honda may have fitted the plug to stop the pad pin from coming out.
If a pad pin comes out, the brake pads can fall out too and the brake will stop working.
So if you replace your brake pad pins after reading this article, please do so at your own risk.