Racing

Galfer Brakes Factory Tour 2011

January 19, 2011

In 1946 in Barcelona, Spain, Maffio Milesi and a Mr. Gallo founded a brake pad company named Gallo Freni. After Mr. Milesi bought out Mr. Gallo he simplified the company name to Galfer. In 1992, one of Maffio's three sons, Giorgio, set up a facility in Southern California where the company's brake line development and production and American sales force are based.In 1996, back in Spain, the company opened an off-site facility near the Barcelona factory to begin cutting rotors. At the end of 2009, the Spanish main facility moved from downtown Barcelona to the outskirts of the city, right next to the Circuit de Catalunya racetrack; this is where all Galfer brake pads are now produced, rotors are designed and, as you read this, laser cutting and CNC machining tools should be rolling in from the off-site facility.We got invited to tour the work-in-progress main facility in Spain, as well as the works-like-clockwork brake line production in Oxnard, California. Everyone at the company is dedicated to squeezing the best brake performance out of your motorcycle's slow-down system, and here's what that looks like when they let you run around with a camera.

We caught Galfer mid-move at its new facility. About half of the machines you see here are \'place holders\' for the real machinery that hadn\'t arrived yet.

Metals, resins, lubricants and abrasives are formed into \"aramids\"-where molecules align to form the desired bond.

This is Jordi Gorriz, who gets my vote for \"best school spirit.\" On this day he was mixing up aramids to make organic brake \"pucks.\"

The \"Performadora\" mixes the powders and shapes them into pucks. You can see the pucks coming out the front.

These are the brake-pads-in-progress going into trays to be heated to 200 degrees Celsius and put under 500 kg/cm2 of pressure. They\'ll lose about 50 percent of their height with the compression.

This is the puck (before, right) and pad (after, mounted) to show the difference the heat and compression make during the production process.

This little oven cures the pads. It\'s only about eight feet tall.

This \"cooker\" makes sintered pads. It heats the sintered pad mixture at below its melting point to bond the ingredients into a new material.

This laser marker puts part numbers onto the pads, which is important because if you put rear brake pads in the front, the brakes will only work when you ride backward.

This press \"dishes out\" streetbike rotor carriers.

The big new Galfer factory blocks what would be a view of the Circuit de Catalunya, which is atop a small hill about a quarter mile behind the building.

We dirt bike guys should appreciate how simple our brake routing is. Galfer will provide customers with detailed installation photos if there is any confusion during the install.

Measure twice, cut once. Then the ends are trimmed, capped and banjo fittings are inserted.

Mechanical drawings give assemblers the lengths, angles, fittings, part specs and vendor info for each brake line.

The older banjo fitting designs required this hand press. It kinda looked like those carnival crankers that squish pennies into souvenirs.

Then the banjo fittings are crimped on. This machine has a display and alarm that confirms the crimper reached 100 percent full-closed.

The polyurethane stiffener section is cut to length, positioned, then shrunk into place with a heat gun.

The workers are meticulous to make each line perfect. Call it pride in the company, or maybe it\'s Dana \"The Intimidator\" in quality control...

The Oxnard factory had a trailer housing one of Austin Stroupe\'s factory RM-Z250s and Ben Spies\' GSX-R1000s. Someone get me a trailer hitch!

Pads and rotors fly over from Spain, but Galfer\'s steel braided brake lines are made in California, in the good ole USA.