Team,
Need a Christmas miracle. Got my daughter a bike. I had some trouble getting the brakes synched up well. Every step of the way I found myself needing to take a step back and disassemble the preceding architecture. No idea if this is the proper terminology.
Anyway I’ve found the underlying condition as to why the brakes are all messed up. The two front brake arms are not equally spaced in relation to the tire. Here’s the evidence: https://imgur.com/a/UNRbZlN
In the first pic the arms are touching the tire, but you’ll see each is at a different angle. The arm on the left side of the pic travels way further than the arm on the right.
I cannot understand how this is the case. The wheel is symmetrically attached to the front form. But for sure there is some misalignment where the brake pads should meet the wheel. It’s cockeyed.
What do I do?
by southpawshuffle
3 Comments
“If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing twice. Or three times. Or however many it takes.”
Since you’ve been fiddling with this, this vid by Park Tools should make sense:
https://youtu.be/XMa9UqY9obk?si=QgEY6JOIQ4dF_4QN
You sure the wheel is fully in the dropouts on the fork? Loosen the 15mm nuts that hold the axle, let the wheel fully settle into the fork. Also, it looks like there’s retention washers that are installed backwards potentially. The L shape should go into a hole above the axle and make it so the axle does not easily fall out of the fork if the axle nuts are not fully tightened. These need to be on the outside, between the nut and the fork.
At the bottom of the brake arms, near the pivot, each has a small screw sticking out sideways…
These adjust the spring tension on the arms…
Tighten the one that moves too much, or loosen the one that moves less…. (Or a combination of both)
You can play with these to even up how much each arm moves…
Equally balanced movement is best, but it doesn’t really need to be perfect, you still get equal braking pressure on both sides… It’s more about moving away far enough to not drag when not applying the brakes…