Blaster Brake Upgrade
The beauty of the Blaster is its simplicity. With this simplicity comes marginal performance and increased maintenance. This is true with the manual brakes on the pre03 Blasters. The braking is poor from the factory, then becomes nonexistant after time. First off the Parking Brake is tied into the rear brake cable. This cable is long and needs constant adjustments and has alot off slack. Second the design of the caliper is poor and needs readjustment and cleaning after time. The pads aren't that great either.
What is a Blaster owner to do? You can retrofit the system to hydraulic brakes. If you don't have the cash to retrofit or mechanical ability, here are a few tips.
You will need a 12mm wrench, 12 mm socket and rachet, 5mm allen key, and high temp silicone brake grease
First you can clean and adjust the caliper. To do this you pull the brake cable cover back and loosen cable adjuster locknut. Then turn the adjuster clockwise until it stops. Next remove the 3 caliper cover mounting bolts and remove the cover and gasket. Pull adjuster unit from caliper and remove the collar from the adjuster arm.
Next you pull the cable out of the caliper. Remove caliper mounting bolts and remove caliper from disc. To remove outer pad use a screw driver or other flat object and pry it out.
To remove the inner pad push against the guide pin sticking out of the back of the caliper
Clean the brake pads with a aerosol brake cleaner, and ruff up brake surface with some sandpaper. Apply High Temp Silicone Brake Grease to the o-ring on the outer pad holder A, outer brake pad holder B, and inner brake pad guide pin C. Make sure not to get grease on the friction surface.
Next you will need to reset the adjuster bolt. To do this you pull out the white plastic ratchet out till it doesn't touch the stopper spring. Then you turn it counter clockwise till it stops and push the ratchet back in.
Reassemble and adjust brake cable.
The second way to improve brake performance is to eliminate parking brake and istall a shorty brake cable. These are available from Vito's, Synder Motorsports, Dennis Kirk, or Ebay.
The third step is to install some aftermarket brake pads. I feel some the grooved pads are the best for trailriding. The grooves give the dirt and water a place to go. Also they allow gas that builds up when the brakes heat up to escape, eliminating the spongy brake feeling. I used Vesrah Grooved Brake Pads from Dennis Kirk.