|   How are properly bleed brakes supposed to feel? | Dog Welder
Apr 3, 2002 12:27 AM | | I got some Hope minis and they come bleed straight from the factory. The lever felt spongy after I installed them. Re-bleed and still the same. So are properly bleed disks supposed to feel spongy? I've noticed that hayes brakes installed on bikes in my LBS feel soft and the moment the pads hit the rotor they get hard. Is this how brakes are supposed to feel? Soft then hard? Thanks. |
| Yep... they should.... | BCRider
Apr 3, 2002 9:04 AM | | .... feel silky smooth for the first part of the travel until the pads touch and then the lever should almost feel like it hit a travel limit screw.
But lots of other things come into the picture. If the pads are new and not shaped to land on the rotor totally flat then you'll feel that moment of things flexing as a sponginess in the system. If the brake lines swell with the pressure, that's more sponginess. If the calipers mechanically flex from the pressure (they are C shaped after all) then you'll feel that too. Etc, etc....
But the two biggies are the pads not being seated to the rotor and air bubbles. Sometimes it's quite a chase to get that last bubble or two out of the system. It often helps to pull the caliper off and rotate it around into various positions while squeezing the lever (with something between the pistons to keep them from popping out of course). Work them around like this and end with a few slight movements that place the bleed point higher than the rest of the caliper and then bleed. With any luck you'll see some more bubbles come out. And if your system has the little mini banjo fittings then you can sometimes find an airbubble hiding in the fitting. Pull the lever to pressurize the system and slightly loosen the fitting bolt so the fluid leaks out around the edges and re-tighten before the lever stops moving. Do them all and clean up the mess. The ball type fittings don't suffer from this as the flow is straighter. |
| re: How are properly bleed brakes supposed to feel? | richard
Apr 4, 2002 4:44 AM | | ive got hope minis. at first they are a bit dissapointing in the feel but for some reason after use and wearing in they feel much better. the feel of them is soft at first as this is the modulation part of the brake pads hitting the disc then they feel much harder when they really bite.this is a pretty simple way of describing this btw. you will learn to love the modulation they give.if u dont like how much the lever comes back to the bars try screwing on the max lever reach adjustment untill they are furthest out.this is no good for small hands unfortunatly. i havent needed to bleed them yet but i wonder if you could deliberatly put in too much fluid to force out the pistons meaning that bite point is adjusted nearer? |
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