brakes

morleyman200

can you swap over leavers, so you have a different company lever to the caliper. the two systems in question are giant root caliper bleed to a shimano lever. both systems use mineral oil as the fluid, but would it make much difference?

Tom

nicklouse

Nope.

andrewjoseph

morleyman200 wrote:

can you swap over leavers, so you have a different company lever to the caliper. the two systems in question are giant root caliper bleed to a shimano lever. both systems use mineral oil as the fluid, but would it make much difference?

Tom

will the brake levers fit on the master cylinder, is the pivot setup the same? is the leverage the same?

andrewjoseph

nicklouse wrote:

Nope.

'Nope' to what Nick? he's asked two different questions.

morleyman200

sorry i didn't mean just the lever, i meant the whole lever assembly, including the reservoir etc, so undo the hose and then attach the new leaver.

bikaholic

If both hydraulic disc brake components are of the open type and if both use the the same type of fluid, then, generally, they can be mated together and it will work (albeit, to varying degrees but close enough in performance to the original stock setup).

I've tried the Giant Root lever/Shimano M525 and M575 caliper and they work well - the converse setup will also work.

If in doubt, try it out.

Use Hope barbed inserts and olives if you want to experiment as they are reusable.

Where the hose diameters differ on each brake system (eg 5mm vs 5.5mm), use the smaller of the two diameters for the Frankenbrake. The shroud nut will deform and compress the olive firmly onto the hose so you will just need to wrap a bit of tape around the hose to take up the 0.5mm gap otherwise it will rattle about inside the shroud nut.

andrewjoseph

morleyman200 wrote:

sorry i didn't mean just the lever, i meant the whole lever assembly, including the reservoir etc, so undo the hose and then attach the new leaver.

I'm not sure. it will depend on lever piston and caliper piston ratios. the lever may force more or less fluid than the pistons need.

The Rookie

With AJ and Nick on this, you have to match the lever ratio, master cylinder piston and calliper piston sizes to get it right, wrong and you could end up with a very wooden lever with little braking or the pads never getting to the discs before the lever hits the bars.

Some will work, some won't, not sure I'd bother unless I had all the bits laying around doing nothing and they wouldn't work with the right 'other end'.

Simon

gezebo

Sounds like you've already got the parts so give it a go. There is often a surprising amount of similarity in situations like these but for obvious reasons manufactures advise not to do it...

Let us know how it goes!

morleyman200

the original problem was, the giant lever would keep coming out of the lever housing, i had a fall and the cup part of the cup and ball joint, has worn down so the ball can fall out.

As far as the change goes, it did work, but when it came to bleeding the system, for love nor money i could not get pressure into the system, the feel in the break seemed to be ok, just 'spongy' im guessing this would be resolved if the bleed on the system went better.

Ive managed to find another break system which has saved this issue anyway.

thanks for the advise