Ok, so I picked up a set of Avid Juicy 5 hydraulic disc brakes. My brother has the hayes 9's which are supposedly on par with the juicy 5's, but my friend has the juicy 3's which I like more than the hayes, so I figured I couldn't go wrong with the Juicy 5's considering they were the same price as the Hayes 9's.
Anyway, I ended up with the Juicy 5's and was excited to put them on my bike and go ride. Well, despite the tri-align and all this other fancy stuff to make installation and alignment a breeze, I couldn't get either the front or rear to get a full rotation by hand without coming to a quick halt, and the rear had a nasty metal on metal grinding sound as if the rotor was hitting the caliper.
So I put some washers on the front to move the caliper closer to the rotor then almost maxed out the adjustment to move it over. The wheel now spins freely with only a very very slight rubbing which I believe is normal. Now for the rear, it seemed that the caliper was spaced correctly left to right, but for some odd reason the top edge of the rotor was hitting the little clip at the top that holds the pads in. Because I have horizontal drop outs, the brake mounts "holes" are slots to accommodate the different wheel/rotor positions. After adjusting this so the front and rear had clearance, I would tighten them down and it wound grind ever so slightly. After moving it both forward and rearward in the slots, it only got worse. I returned it to the best position, and put a washer in that held the rear of the caliper a little bit higher than the stock set up allowed. Perfect, no rubbing at all, and definitely no grinding.
Does everyone have this much trouble setting up the avids? My friend said the Juicy 3's that came on his bike were also spaced similar to this.
And a final thing, the brakes are super spongy with very little stopping power even though they came "pre-bled." My brother's hayes were the same, but now they are perfect with no bleeding or anything, just from sitting on the bike. Is it just because they were shipped tied up in a knot and upside down, or am I going to have to buy that stupid syringe system to bleed these things?
Thanks,
-Alex
Anyway, I ended up with the Juicy 5's and was excited to put them on my bike and go ride. Well, despite the tri-align and all this other fancy stuff to make installation and alignment a breeze, I couldn't get either the front or rear to get a full rotation by hand without coming to a quick halt, and the rear had a nasty metal on metal grinding sound as if the rotor was hitting the caliper.
So I put some washers on the front to move the caliper closer to the rotor then almost maxed out the adjustment to move it over. The wheel now spins freely with only a very very slight rubbing which I believe is normal. Now for the rear, it seemed that the caliper was spaced correctly left to right, but for some odd reason the top edge of the rotor was hitting the little clip at the top that holds the pads in. Because I have horizontal drop outs, the brake mounts "holes" are slots to accommodate the different wheel/rotor positions. After adjusting this so the front and rear had clearance, I would tighten them down and it wound grind ever so slightly. After moving it both forward and rearward in the slots, it only got worse. I returned it to the best position, and put a washer in that held the rear of the caliper a little bit higher than the stock set up allowed. Perfect, no rubbing at all, and definitely no grinding.
Does everyone have this much trouble setting up the avids? My friend said the Juicy 3's that came on his bike were also spaced similar to this.
And a final thing, the brakes are super spongy with very little stopping power even though they came "pre-bled." My brother's hayes were the same, but now they are perfect with no bleeding or anything, just from sitting on the bike. Is it just because they were shipped tied up in a knot and upside down, or am I going to have to buy that stupid syringe system to bleed these things?
Thanks,
-Alex
