Bicycle Mechanics - Please help - Mechanically inept

Between watering the new lawn and cooking last night I had about an hour and a half to work on my bike so I thought I'd get round to fitting the new front v-brakes, levers, swap the seven-speed mech and shifter for the 8spd, and maybe get round to swapping the rear brake blocks...

It took a little longer than I expected...

Well the front lever and shifter are in place, but the brakes are giving me problems, looking towards the rear of the bike the left-hand brake moves intowards the wheel, but the right-hand one fails to move unless I loosen the fixing bolt - how tight should it be? My books seem to stop at brakes with a central yoke pull. How do the small adjustment screws work?

I think the rear mech should be more straightforward :)

Richard

Hi Richard,

A few tips about V-brakes. Firstly, they are far easier to centre if you put a drip of top quality light oil (ie Finishline teflon etc) on every bushing on each side, I think there are 8 points per arm. Secondly, are you sure the long metal bar (the one that acts as a spring) hooks against the peg on the INboard side of the brake on both sides, also is the retaining pin at the bottom of each brake in the same hole on both bosses ?

The main retaining bolts shouldn't have any influence on the action of the arms, they are there to basically keep the arm on the boss. There is an allen head grub screw on each arm that affects the spring tension of the arm. Start with each grub screw at about the same place in the holes, roughly flush with the arm. If one arm goes in easily whilst the other doesnt move, screw in the grub screw about a turn on the arm that moves in too easily and maybe slightly loosen the opposite grub screw. This adds resistance to this arm and gives the other arm a chance to move in. Experiment from there. This is one job where the oiling the pivots trick really helps as it overcomes most of the stiction in the arms and makes balancing the spring tension much simpler.

HTH :).

Guy.

yeah, what he said!

Also, I often have to move the spacers around on the brake pads to get the proper position for the caliper arms!

L8R

1 1/5 hour to do this is positive thinking :D
But what about your rear der.?

Thanks.

I've decided to devote Saturday morning (and maybe part of the afternoon ;) ) to finishing the job, and I'm off on Monday waiting for Parcel Farce to deliver my new toy so I can manage without it until Tuesday.


Richard

Took them off, put them on again and they work wonderfully. #I must get a pair for the rear - SRAM 9.0 v-brakes are highly recommended, complete with koolstop cartridge pads :)

With the rear mech, having managed to cross-thread the rear-derailleur (inept me ;) )I was fortunate enough to find my neighbour out in his yard, to give me a hand with the indexing (he's a competent mechanic who owns five bikes) worth a bottle of wine.

All runs sweetly now :)

Richard