Squealing V-Brakes

[kh6zv9]

On my mountain bike I have shimano V brakes that squeal like hell when they get hot during braking
down a hill. The front pads are shimano and the rear pads are black kool-stops. The toe-in is
adjusted as far as I can without degrading the braking action. The rims are aluminum Ryhno-lites.

The bike is a trek 930 from around 1998 I believe.

Not only do they squeal horribly but the front gets grabby too.

Any Ideas? I will be listening. thanks.

--------------------------------
Bob Masse' [email protected]
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[Paul Southworth]

In article <[email protected]>, <[email protected]> wrote:
>On my mountain bike I have shimano V brakes that squeal like hell when they get hot during braking
>down a hill. The front pads are shimano and the rear pads are black kool-stops. The toe-in is
>adjusted as far as I can without degrading the braking action. The rims are aluminum Ryhno-lites.
>
>The bike is a trek 930 from around 1998 I believe.
>
>Not only do they squeal horribly but the front gets grabby too.
>
>Any Ideas? I will be listening. thanks.

Obviously I can't tell you if you've really adjusted them right or not. Assuming that you have...

Some Shimano V brakes have a linkage system to keep the pad parallel to the rim while as it moves
inward. I don't know how they are these days but I deal with several pairs a few years back and
found they just got floppy loose after a while and tend to squeal or chatter. I chose to replace.

I generally use the Avid V-brakes which don't have that particular problem. Such as the
Single Digit 7.

Additionally sometimes the canti stud protrudes too far past the bushing and that will cause play in
the brake as well. Carefully filing the stud is the typical fix.

--Paul

 

[Chris B .]

On Thu, 09 Oct 2003 04:38:02 -0000, [email protected] wrote:

>On my mountain bike I have shimano V brakes that squeal like hell when they get hot during braking
>down a hill. The front pads are shimano and the rear pads are black kool-stops. The toe-in is
>adjusted as far as I can without degrading the braking action. The rims are aluminum Ryhno-lites.
>
>The bike is a trek 930 from around 1998 I believe.
>
>Not only do they squeal horribly but the front gets grabby too.
>
>Any Ideas? I will be listening. thanks.

Do your brakes have the parallel push linkage? If so, I doubt that you will be able to silence them
for any significant length of time, though you might try a pad replacement since the Shimanos are
notorious for getting bits of rim imbedded in them. A scraping or grinding noise during the
descents you mention would be the telltale sign. The XT V-brakes on the front of my beater bike
make an incredible groaning/screeching noise which gets only slightly worse in the wet. I also have
Deores (no parallel push) and Avid Arch Rivals on each of two other bikes and these make no sound,
wet or dry.

One unusual suggestion I read about but have not tried was to put elastic bands around the linkage.
The person who claimed that this worked for him had apparently tried just about everything else,
including the replacement bushings from Shimano.

--
Chris Bird