First timer V-brake maintenance

spurscormac

Have to replace the pads on my v-brakes, after I noticed they weren't working to well on Sunday morning coming downhill on the new trail at Oughterard. Literally couldn't stop on a couple of turns, and headed straight on instead.

Anyway, on ispection, its seems they need some adjustment when I put the new pads on.
Front pads are worn more on one side than the other.
Back pads have a ridge formed where the pad goes under the edge of the rim on contact.

From reading park tools and Utah MTB pages, this appears not too difficult a job to do myself.
For the front, I need to adjust the tension to bring the pad closer to the rim.
For the back I need to realign the pads so they are flush with the rim when gripping, so as not to make an "edge" again.

Anything I'm missing here, or am I all set ?
Anyone with experience in this got any good advice or little things I should take note of to make this as simple and foolproof as possible ?

Morgan

The Park and Utah pages have all the info you need - after that a bit of trial and error will sort it out. There isn't much that can go wrong.

kona

spurscormac wrote: »

Have to replace the pads on my v-brakes, after I noticed they weren't working to well on Sunday morning coming downhill on the new trail at Oughterard. Literally couldn't stop on a couple of turns, and headed straight on instead.

Anyway, on ispection, its seems they need some adjustment when I put the new pads on.
Front pads are worn more on one side than the other.
Back pads have a ridge formed where the pad goes under the edge of the rim on contact.

From reading park tools and Utah MTB pages, this appears not too difficult a job to do myself.
For the front, I need to adjust the tension to bring the pad closer to the rim.
For the back I need to realign the pads so they are flush with the rim when gripping, so as not to make an "edge" again.

Anything I'm missing here, or am I all set ?
Anyone with experience in this got any good advice or little things I should take note of to make this as simple and foolproof as possible ?

you do realise that v-brakes are being replaced by discs for this very reason, its all the ****e on the rims that it has to get through to actually start to work that causes the delay.

to set them up.

1. pads unevenly worn, this is the spring tension, its adjusted by two screws just under the brake arms.

2. a ridge formed, this is because your pads were not adjusted with wear and so they sat too low, just move them up a bit, and toe them in to stop them squeaking.

3. when you get new pads, make sure they are V-brake pads, alot of pads look the same, you will have washers and screws on them.
there will be two pivots facing each other when the pads come new, remove the nut , cup and one of these pivots, put pads into brake arms, them re-assemble the parts you took off "in reverse order".

the amount of people who get 3 wrong is unreal.:)

spurscormac

kona wrote: »

you do realise that v-brakes are being replaced by discs for this very reason, its all the ****e on the rims that it has to get through to actually start to work that causes the delay.

to set them up.

1. pads unevenly worn, this is the spring tension, its adjusted by two screws just under the brake arms.

2. a ridge formed, this is because your pads were not adjusted with wear and so they sat too low, just move them up a bit, and toe them in to stop them squeaking.

3. when you get new pads, make sure they are V-brake pads, alot of pads look the same, you will have washers and screws on them.
there will be two pivots facing each other when the pads come new, remove the nut , cup and one of these pivots, put pads into brake arms, them re-assemble the parts you took off "in reverse order".

the amount of people who get 3 wrong is unreal.:)

Thanks for the advice - yeah they are the correct replacements alright.
I'll try to make sure I put them on the right order.

And yes, disc breaks would be a good idea, but on a budget at the moment and if spedning I have a few other things I'd like to get first, so will stick with the current setup for now.

Morgan - yeah those sites are pretty good & look like they give me all the info I need, just wanted to get a little feedback like Kona's on not mixing up the order of the washers.

spurscormac

Brakes sorted, turned out to be easy enough in the end once I found the time to do it.

Was on Aranmore island off Donegal last weekend for a stag, plenty of good offroad there.
Some of the roads are so bad they would be considered off-road.
Also, plenty of downhill, or should I saw downcliff, to test the brakes & all was fine bar a little bit of squeal - must try toeing a little more to see if it solves it.

Working from home today until 5pm, quiet enough, so thought I'd also have a go at tweaking the gears, which was slipping on largest back cog.
After a while of messing around & consulting the maintenance sites, it seems to be working fine now.

Just a pity I'm stuck in the house until 5, nice weather to get back out to Oughterard and try the trails again.

This maintenance lark ain't too bad - follow the instructions and you should be ok - though cones & wheel truing I'll leave to the professionals :-)