Hayes 9's - Gone abit wrong?

Papa Smurf

Changed my tyres over this morning, put my front wheel back on and done it up, only to get a Clunk/Clack/Crack with every turn. Turns out that the rotor had decided to jam itself against the mount/caliper. So I adjusted that so the rotor doesn't rub, now all I get is a wheel that'll hardly move,a brake that wouldn't stop a piece of paper flying through the air and no more than 1mm on movement on the brake lever.

Any ideas?

nicklouse

sounds like the wheel is not seated correctly in the dropouts.

as the original problem. but now you will need to rebed the brakes.

try restarting from the beginning again.

RussAlf

Sounds like you pulled on the lever while the wheel was out meaning that the pistons would have come out. Take the wheel off, get a 10mm spanner and push the pistons all the way back in being carefull not to snap off the little pad holder. Put the wheel back on and then pull on the lever and then adjust the caliper mount so its central.

Papa Smurf

The wheel was definately seated, tried it while the bike was up side down the right way up.. But no, couldn't get rid of the clank.
As it turns out, I did pull the lever and the calipers didn't reset.
The bike was fine before I took the wheel out and I didn't touch the brakes so am abit miffed as to why it's jammed itself on the caliper mount now.
And although it didn't leak at all while it was upside down, or at any other stage.. It now turns out there is no oil in there..

So while I'm here I wanted to ask, is it worthwhile jus buying some DOT 4 brake fluid and starting from the begining, or buying the Hayes Bleed Kit and starting from the begining?

nicklouse

well for the hayes a bleed kit is really needed.

RussAlf

If the brake level will only move 1mm then you must have fluid in there.

I doubt a bleed will help the issue as your lever only moves 1mm, if you had air in there then it would move lots and feel squidgy.

As i said make sure the pistons are properly seated as far back as they will go into the caliper, then pump the lever untill they come out and touch the disk. This will reset the pistons.

hayes Bleed kit is pretty rubbish but i dont think you will be capable of bleeding them if you cant work out whats wrong at this stage. Bleeding hayes is pretty tricky to get right.

RussAlf

Your pistons proberly look something like this.



Push them all the way back in.

Papa Smurf

Initially I could only move the lever 1mm, but by the time I got the bike 2 minutes down the road I had no lever at all.. It's free as anything now. The pads are fine, disk is clean so I'm thinking the next step is to bleed them out and start again.

andyturner28

What made you think there was no fluid in there, did you take of the resovoir cap, if it has one? If so that would have caused air to get in the system. I know nothing about Hayes brakes, is the bleading procedure the same as Avid, i.e. two syringes?

Papa Smurf

andyturner28 wrote:

What made you think there was no fluid in there, did you take of the resovoir cap, if it has one? If so that would have caused air to get in the system. I know nothing about Hayes brakes, is the bleading procedure the same as Avid, i.e. two syringes?

There was fluid in there, but once we opened it up there was literally a small blob with a tiny tiny bit sitting up in the resovoir.
Bleeding is fairly simple in a sense... Open the bleed tap, fit pipe going into jar, squeeze the lever and keep topping up the resovoir untill no air is coming out the bottom, not letting the resovoir run out of oil of course.
Done all that now, no air is present.. But I can only stop on flat ground, eventually.

Gonna get it checked out today hopefully..

RussAlf

Jon that is not how you bleed Hayes, go on the hayes website and read the guide.

cee

yah...surely the reservoir in a hayes 9 brake is a membraned system, so there is no reservoir to top up at the lever....

In fact...hayes say do not take out the two torx screws that hold the rese cap on....just remove the little bleed jobby at the lever end, then use a squeezy bottle at the bottom to push fluid up (and suck bubbles back out of those pesky bits in the caliper that trap air.)