what's the "secret" with hybrid bike brakes??

geardad

my wife's schwinn is about a 15 year old beast on which I attempted to adjust the brakes. These are not caliper types as found on road bikes, but the type you see on mountain and hybrid bikes.

Aside from the shoes being about at the end of their useful lives, I find it bamboozling how to get my adjustments to the shoe and its housing to stay put!!

I get it just "so" then tighten the nut down carefully, taking GREAT care not to move anything AS I tighten...looks ok for about 2 seconds, then I give a few squeezes to the brake lever and everything goes kazoooey!

it seems the rig doesn't want to stay at equilibrium, if that's a good word; when lever is relaxed, each shoe mechanism needs to relax, too, such that each shoe goes back to the resting spot it was set to; on this bike, one shoe is WAY close, the other is WAY far away from the rim.

Granted, these aren't exactly top shelf brakes, but perhaps my approach could use improvement?

thanks for any tips!

gd

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alfeng

Clean & grease the POSTS that the brakes pivot on ...

Grease the brake cables ... OR, replace & grease the new brake cables.

geardad

OK...that did occur to me, but Is there a spring in there that might go sproinggg as I take the assmebly apart?

it's that spring that helps the shoe go back to its "off" position, right?

gd

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daveornee

http://www.parktool.com/repair/readhowto.asp?id=19

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David Ornee, Western Springs, IL USA

alfeng

I'm presuming you are talking about V-brakes, but this is true for cantilever calipers, too ...

With either, you won't have to worry about the springs (which do indeed help the calipers open) IF YOU RELEASE THE TENSION ON THE CABLE before you attempt to remove them ...

With V-brakes, close the top of the arms with your hands & SLIP the NOODLE out of the LEFT swing-arm ... OR, disconnect the cable from the RIGHT caliper (only do this if the end of the cable is not frayed AND you are planning to re-lube the cable ... why introduce more work than you need to?).

With cantilever brakes, you can either slip a yoke off the connecting cable OR (if the style is unified) slip one end of the connecting cable from one of the two cantilever calipers.

When there isn't any tension on the calipers, they will flop open, and there will no-longer be tension on the springs. REMEMBER WHICH HOLE THE SPRING IS INSERTED IN.

There is an adjusting screw at the bottom (near the brake pad) of the V-brakes which can be used to adjust what you are talking about, but it is something best left alone if you don't have to fiddle with it -- if it was adjusted properly 15 years ago, then it is probably a maintenance issue (i.e., grease) rather than an adjustment issue which the screw is intended for.