Juicy 5 brake

BigAl

Are these well known as troublesome? Mine certainly are. I have them on my 2nd bike which gets infrequent use. Every time I come to use it the brakes are jammed to the rotors and there's evidence of fluid leaks from the levers.

I've replaced the seals and bled them often.

Are they just shite, am I just unlucky or should I just ditch them for some deores or similar (suggestions invited but inexpensive only)? They work well enough when serviced but I'm tired of them.

supersonic

Old design, problematic. Not worth keeping on saving them.

nicklouse

sounds like they have been bled incorrectly and too much fluid is in them.

peopel have issues with all brakes but these are no worse or better than any others.

BigAl

nicklouse wrote:

sounds like they have been bled incorrectly and too much fluid is in them.

I bow to your greater knowledge and experience Nick, but........

a) I've followed the bleeding, bleeding instructions in the manual pretty exactly and

b) how does one put too much fluid in? Surely if too much fluid it will spill out when I remove the syringe before fitting the 'sealing bolt' (or whatever you call it)

BTW when I went to the LBS for fluid (and explained the problem) the workshop guy just rolled his eyes at the mention of juicys. He also suggested ditching them for, well, almost anything else.

Are basic Shimanos the way to go for, well, basic, vfm brakes?

BigAl

supersonic wrote:

Old design, problematic. Not worth keeping on saving them.

They are undeniably 'old'

Has 'design' of brakes really changed in the last 5 years?

coulddobetter

I run avid x9 2012 without problems ( there was a major redesign of the lever end due to problematic air trapping ) From reading around many people have been put off by juicy brakes particularly with noise and bleed issues .

I would recommend x9 to anyone as all I have needed to do is replace pads in a years use .

Chunkers1980

BigAl wrote:

supersonic wrote:

Old design, problematic. Not worth keeping on saving them.

They are undeniably 'old'

Has 'design' of brakes really changed in the last 5 years?

Yes, and it is more 10 years

thistle_

I'm running some ancient Juicy 5s on one bike. The pistons do tend to get stiff but cleaning any crud off and pushing the pistons all the way back in usually frees them up.

I replaced the seals on some newer Juicy 3s after having similar problems - one worked brilliantly, the other just kept leaking afterwards. I replaced them with some Deores because they were cheap at the time and worked a lot better.

The Rookie

BigAl wrote:

b) how does one put too much fluid in? Surely if too much fluid it will spill out when I remove the syringe before fitting the 'sealing bolt' (or whatever you call it)

Not using the piston spacer while bleeding.....simples, many people leave the pads in and agaisnt the disc.

rockmonkeysc

I have had lots of Avid brakes including Juicy 3,5 & 7, Elixir 5 & X0 and BB7. All were unreliable and rubbish except the BB7

The Rookie

My (antique really by the time I was using them) Juicy's were totally reliable, but they were rather on/off and lacked progression and a natural feel (amazingly some brand new XX's I tried on a demo bike felt just as nasty), Shimano really score in that area.