Vesrah Brake pads.

[wayne]

I made a FB post about testing brake pads and finding Vesrah best of the three I looked at.

Glenn Reay on the Facebook Owner's club responded with some interesting info on Vesrah. Glenn has decades of in house experience with Suzuki dealerships in the UK. Sam once told me the best pads were the originals that Suzuki supplied so it marries well with my experience and what Glenn points out (I suspect asbestos had a bit to do with it but these days that's out of the picture for all pad manufacturers). Glenn notes the packaging in his picture is the original from back then (it's a set from his old dealership) and is no longer the same.

Posted with permission and thanks:

[hudson]

 This is a service bulletin and a information paper that was included with the O.E.M brake pads describing the changes to the pad design to go with design changed to the caliper piston.  The early pads had a thinner metal backing plate that went with the pistons that had contact by the O.D. of the pad. The new design had thicker metal plates as to not flex and cause pad cracking from the new piston design that pushed on the center of the pad. The new pads were marked with an "A" but the same part number as indicated in the information paper.  Some I have seen had the "A" printed with black ink and some were stamped into the metal backing plate. The early pads are .115 of an inch deep in the recessed back and the   "A" pads are .075 deep  in the back of the piston side pad.

As for the Vesrah pads they very well could have been the producer of the O.E.M. pads but that does not mean they are the same material spec. that the O.E.M. specified. When I worked at the dealership in the 1970"s we also carried the Vesrah and O.E.M. pads. I remember them not looking like the same material and I always tried to use OEM when I could. But I do not know for absolute they were different. So far I have been able to find N.O.S. pads, but I have also bought the early design by mistake before I knew there was a difference.

The service bulletin seems to have plate thickness dimensions not the pocket depth, I have measured both styles my self is where I got the .115 vs .075 pocket depths   

Clicking the pages opens them to a viewable size on my screen if I am logged in.

I think it may be a good idea to add these two pages to the resources list.

Brian