[bdamschen]

Ok, I may in fact be totally brake ignorant, so maybe you guys can help me out.

I just slapped a new set of Juicy sevens on my girlfriends bike for sea otter. They came pre-bled and ready to go, however, after I got the levers adjusted to where they needed to be, the brakes felt a little spongy and were not contacting the rotor until they were pulled almost to the bar. I checked the pad contact levers and they were dialed all the way out. I figured that the system must have air in it and needed to be bled, so I busted out the avid bleed kit and followed the instructions.

After bleeding the brakes, the levers feel exactly the same. So my question to you monkies is- how he heck do I get these levers to engage say, half way to the bar rather than 3/4s of the way? At this point the pad contact dial is useless since they have to be dialed all the way out just to keep the lever from hitting the bar.

Little help!

 

[sanjuro]

Adjust the throw.

 

[mystirbill]

if they we new brakes did you take the time to bed the pads in before you took them out on the trail? it should explain this in the instructions. you need to ride your bike at a decent clip and slam on the brakes a bunch of times to get the pads to mate up to the rotors better. most "new" brakes and rotors wont feel very good until after a ride or two.

 

[kuksul08]

Try turning those little allens in the handle area. They will adjust the engagement of the piston and angle of the handle, etc.

 

[bdamschen]

Well, the pads are now broke in and stop much better than before, however my engagement problem is still there. I have to pull my levers pretty far in before the pads contact the rotor.

As far as I know, the little allens in the handle area only adjust the distance the lever is from the bar (ie reach adjustment). Currently for me to get the lever to feel good when braking, I have to set the levers so far out that you can't really reach the brakes with your index finger during normal riding.

How do I adjust the throw? The pad contact knobs are all the way out. I know on my 06 juicys (which came pretty much set up) that I still have a lot of room to dial them out and those brakes are grabbing much earlier.

It feels to me like maybe when I bleed the brakes, I'm not getting as much fluid in there as I could be since the brakes feel much better when I still have the syringe hooked up and am holding down the plunger when pulling on the brake. Unfortunately, the process of unscrewing the syringe and then screwing back in the bleed screw causes that extra pressure to go away. Anyone got any sweet tricks?

 

[Curious_George]

make sure the reache adj is total loose...i.e. barely tightened so that the brake is closest to the bar and make sure the pad contact point is at the lowest...all dialed in so that there is no effect in any way on the system.

Make sure you push/pull...people tend to only push and push right in air....Dont forget air expands and is lighter than oil and wants to go upwards...I would suggest unplugging the bottom syringe first and sucking a few times with the top

apart from that....you may want to squeeze the brake b4 so that the pads are close to the disc from the get go

try it out let me know

 

[dirtygirlmagnet]

there's a point in the instructions (I don't remember where since I haven't read them in a while) where you close the special red clip on the caliper syringe, and proceed to work on the top end. At this point I will always close the topside syringe, remove the bottom syringe and replace the special setscrew into place. The setscrew will have a much more solid seal in closing off the system than the red clamp on the syringe. This allows you to bleed the top better. If this trick doesn't help, I don't know how to help you, since I never really read your entire post

Maybe I'll come back to this thread in a few weeks and help again if it's not solved by then.

 

[huckaduck]

sounds like there isnt enough fluid in the system. sometimes pre-bled bikes have to much fluid and the brakes are dragging or locked up, so you have to bleed a little out, sometimes to little and they bottom out on the bars and the pad contact dial doesnt do much. i have had to ad a little fkuid to some codes and juicy sevens too, add it too the top reservoir.