Adjusting vee style brake arms

piccadilly

Hello,

Rear brakes on my Trek hybrid bike don't work properly as one of the brake pads is
too far away from the wheel. The brake arms aren't symtetrical, one of them is much
further from the wheel. I couldn't adjust them, even tried to adjust the little screw at the bottom side of brake arm. I stopped tinkering any further too avoid messing anything up.

I hope this isn't a job that means I have to drop the bike off at my local bike shop.

Thanks.

cjcp

piccadilly wrote:

Hello,

Rear brakes on my Trek hybrid bike don't work properly as one of the brake pads is
too far away from the wheel. The brake arms aren't symtetrical, one of them is much
further from the wheel. I couldn't adjust them, even tried to adjust the little screw at the bottom side of brake arm. I stopped tinkering any further too avoid messing anything up.

I hope this isn't a job that means I have to drop the bike off at my local bike shop.

Thanks.

Is your brake pad worn? Or is the arm sticking? You could put some lube at the point where it pivots. Another option is to adjust the setting of the arm, if you can - you might have three holes on the braze on/bit attached to the seat stay which has three holes in it. Try mounting the brake in the top (?) hole - the pad should then be closer to the wheel rim.

lateralus

loosen the little screw at the bottom of the brake arm on the side where the pad is too far away. Tighten the screw on the opposite side by the same amount. The screws control the tension on the springs that hold the pads away from the rims, so you want to ease tension on the side that's too far away, and add tension to the other side to make it symmetrical.