Sorting out my hydraulic front brake

ogremage
ogremage Posts: 10
edited September 2013 in MTB workshop & tech
So I bought a little-used Boardman Comp mountain bike, and the Avid Juicy 3 front brake rotors were making a scraping sound.

As part of my tinkering to fix that, I managed to lose some hydraulic brake fluid due to unscrewing the wrong screws (very stupid of me), so the brake didn't work at all.

So I bought the Avid brake bleeding kit and did an attempt at replacing the brake fluid per instructions.

The brakes now work, but still not as sharp / strong as the rear ones. E.g., I can now stop using them but I cannot make the front wheel slide, even on wet grass, with me on the bike (some may say that's a good thing).

Is that likely incomplete bleeding and some air in the system, so I should try the brake bleeding procedure again?

I also unscrewed the mounting screws a bit, pressed down on the brake lever, and re-screwed them, and the scraping sound got better, but it hasn't fully gone away.

Any advice on that?

P.S. I know the easiest would be to bring it into the shop and pay them to fix it, but I have not yet abandoned all hope to learn to sort it out myself and I still have plenty of DOT 5.1 fluid to use.

Comments

  • nicklouse
    nicklouse Posts: 50,675
    did you clean the rotor and change the pads?
    "Do not follow where the path may lead, Go instead where there is no path, and Leave a Trail."
    Parktools :?:SheldonBrown
  • ogremage
    ogremage Posts: 10
    nicklouse wrote:
    did you clean the rotor and change the pads?

    The bike has barely been used, so the rotor and the pads all appear to be near-brand-new.

    I cleaned the rotor with water to ensure it doesn't have any hydraulic fluid on it after the spill (I don't think any got on anyway). But I haven't done much else with them (I didn't even remove them for the flushing).
  • nicklouse
    nicklouse Posts: 50,675
    well it sounds like you spilled fluid over the pads and rotor.

    get some cycle brake cleaner and some new pads.

    clean the rotor and caliper and fit new pads.

    this is ofcause presuming that the lever does not come back to the bars.
    "Do not follow where the path may lead, Go instead where there is no path, and Leave a Trail."
    Parktools :?:SheldonBrown
  • ogremage
    ogremage Posts: 10
    nicklouse wrote:
    this is ofcause presuming that the lever does not come back to the bars.

    I can touch the brake lever to the handlebar on both sides, however for the front brake (which works poorly) I can do it fairly easily; for the rear brake (which works fine) it takes quite a bit of effort to do it.

    So from my perspective the way the lever works is quite different between the two sides.
  • The Rookie
    The Rookie Posts: 27,812
    Are the reach adjust screws set to the same place?

    Water won't remove brake fliud, if any got on disc or pad the pads need changing and the disc cleaning with a solvent, prefecrablt IPA.
    Currently riding a Whyte T130C, X0 drivetrain, Magura Trail brakes converted to mixed wheel size (homebuilt wheels) with 140mm Fox 34 Rhythm and RP23 suspension. 12.2Kg.
  • coulddobetter
    coulddobetter Posts: 812
    Don't want to be condescending but double check sram website . In service section you can link to pdf files that cover bleeding . I believe some avids can prove difficult with air remaing trapped at the lever end .
  • ogremage
    ogremage Posts: 10
    Yeah, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to set the levers for bleeding. The video seems to have them point down, but looking at the brake I'm not sure that really places the bleed port as high as possible.
  • coulddobetter
    coulddobetter Posts: 812
    Take a look at sram website . The doc you need is the avid 2010 pdf . It is better than a video as has step by step photos .
    http://www.sram.com/service/avid/all

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