Changing Brakes

jefflad

For commuting I use an old Halfords Mountain Bike. I'm thinking of changing the brakes, currently they are mechanical disc brakes.

What really bothers me about these brakes is that to adjust them you only adjust one site and try to sort of get a decent gap between to rotor and pads. I'm wondering whether to change to hydraulic or maybe just replace the calliper to another mechanical version that maybe allows adjustment from both sides.

On pricing it up it looks like to do front and back for Hydraulic it'll be around the £100 mark for an entry level set or around £60 for the mechanical swap out. Of course for a £150 more I could get brand new MTB in the sales and use that instead but it's more of a learning to do different things on the bike front and repairs and upgrades are high on my want list and I see this as a perfect opportunity.

Thanks for any help/advice/tips you may choose to post.

J

nicklouse

What are the mechanicals? Most that I know are ajustable on both sides.

jefflad

nicklouse wrote:

What are the mechanicals? Most that I know are ajustable on both sides.

Can't see any name on the, came bog standard with the bike.

t4tomo

See if you can get hold of some Avid BB7 mechanicals (2nd hand even), they are the mutts nuts of mechanical discs and v easy to adjust correctly.

Another thought, are they the Clarks ones - my sons carerra came with them and they took (me) a lot of tweaking to get them working OK, although still not as good as the BB7's I have on the tandem

The Rookie

Grimeca are single adjust...you can't move the static pad relative to the calliper body at all.
Some the adjuster is hidden in the center of the lever arm and not always obvious, some you have to adjust the cable to adjust the moving pad.
BB5/7 are the best (get some used perhaps?), my commuter uses clarks as they are the lightest (my setup is lighter than most Hydro).

Simon

jefflad

The Beginner wrote:

Grimeca are single adjust...you can't move the static pad relative to the calliper body at all.
Some the adjuster is hidden in the center of the lever arm and not always obvious, some you have to adjust the cable to adjust the moving pad.
BB5/7 are the best (get some used perhaps?), my commuter uses clarks as they are the lightest (my setup is lighter than most Hydro).

Simon

Thanks, may have a look for them, see what I can pick up.

t4tomo wrote:

See if you can get hold of some Avid BB7 mechanicals (2nd hand even), they are the mutts nuts of mechanical discs and v easy to adjust correctly.

Another thought, are they the Clarks ones - my sons carerra came with them and they took (me) a lot of tweaking to get them working OK, although still not as good as the BB7's I have on the tandem

Not sure about them being Clark's, I've basically got the hang of them but they need adjusted more than the hydraulics on my other bike and this annoys me

t4tomo

jefflad wrote:

I've basically got the hang of them but they need adjusted more than the hydraulics on my other bike and this annoys me

Yep I think that may have had something to do with hydraulics being produced for bikes, much less faff that cable discs. One of my steads has hydro's and they are pretty much fit and forget, although the BB7's aren't far off to be honest.