Replacement brakes

annoyingtwit

The return spring on my front brakes have broken. The spring, which appears to be an integral part of the brake has snapped.

My bike is a Viking 'Trekking' single-speed. The brakes on mine seem the same as the brakes on the new model, which can be seen here:



I think I read somewhere that the fitting style for my brakes are 'old fashioned' and I might have to be careful what brakes I purchase as they might not fit. I was thinking of something like these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shimano-R451- ... XQVT9S66LD

which seem visually similar, but how can I know whether they will fit?

EDIT: The ebay listing says that these callipers "must be used with <list of brake levers>". I've just replaced my brake levers - why would the shimano callipers have to be matched to shimano brake levers?

keef66

You need to make sure that the new calipers match the old in terms of drop (distance from the centre of the brake mounting hole to the centre of the brake track) That picture looks like a long drop caliper, something like 57mm.

You also need the same mounting type. Modern brakes are secured using tubular nuts on short mounting bolts; you use an allen key to tighten them. On a carbon fork the front caliper typically has a very long tubular nut that goes inside the recess in the rear of the fork.
Older style calipers have longer mounting bolts secured with conventional nuts and done up using a spanner.

A picture of your front brake / fork would help

annoyingtwit

Thanks. I'll look later when I'm near my bike, but I'm pretty sure my brakes are attached by a long bolt secured by a nut. EDIT: WRONG. They are attached by an allen key bolt. I don't know if they are longer or shorter, but they are similar to brakes I found on a new "Muddyfox" racing bike parked near mine. I was surprised how many bikes parked near mine have all sorts of different brakes. Only the Muddyfox had similar looking brakes.

I think I might have to go into Halfords or another local bike shop with my bike and ask what fits.

zx6man

I think this link shows better. road version is same as treeking version other than the bars I think.

Shimano brakes tend to come with different length fixing bolts . The ones from wiggle do. •Comes with 10.5/12.5/18 and 27mm sunken nut

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Viking-Road-Sin ... op?ie=UTF8

crankycrank

Shimano sells a replacement spring for their 451 & 650 long reach calipers that MAY fit your calipers. Check here for part numbers from your LBS. http://si.shimano.com/#categories/130 .

annoyingtwit

Thanks for all the advice.

It seems tricky to make sure I have the right length bolt. I think I'm going to have to detach the current brake and have a look at/measure the bolt to see how long it is.

zx6man

AnnoyingTwit wrote:

Thanks for all the advice.

It seems tricky to make sure I have the right length bolt. I think I'm going to have to detach the current brake and have a look at/measure the bolt to see how long it is.

Promax caliper pics suggest the bolt is longer for fronts. Let us know which it is :-)

annoyingtwit

As an ending for this thread, being tired (but not emotional ) this evening I dropped in at Halfords. The only caliper brakes they had were one front Shimano BR-R650. It was more expensive than I planned for (I was hoping the R-451 (?) Tiagra would fit), but they fitted it for free, and experimented with bolts finding that using my previous bolt was the key to fitting it.

So, even if I'm a bit poorer than I planned to be, I do now have properly working front brakes that don't rub. They seem to stop very well, noticeably better than my previous brakes. (The previous brakes did stop, but they wouldn't pull away from the rim properly, making it hard to cycle.) Given that I followed the path of least resistance, I don't think it's too bad an outcome. I did want to fit quality brakes, and this seems to fit the bill.

annoyingtwit

Given how the front brakes now outclass the rear brakes, I've ordered some Shimano R-451 rear brakes as well.

annoyingtwit

In hindsight, I'm disappointed in the rear R451 brakes compared to the front BR-R650 brakes.

Can I fit ultegra brake shoes (which is what my front brakes appear to have) to the rear R451 brakes? It looks feasible looking at the brakes.

k-dog

Yes, and pads is the best upgrade you can make to brakes. It's also handy to have the ones where you can just change the insert rather than the whole pad - makes replacing them much easier in the future.

The rear will never be as good as the front - much longer cable run and back brakes just aren't as effective due to weight transfer - but that should certainly improve it.

annoyingtwit

k-dog wrote:

Yes, and pads is the best upgrade you can make to brakes. It's also handy to have the ones where you can just change the insert rather than the whole pad - makes replacing them much easier in the future.

The rear will never be as good as the front - much longer cable run and back brakes just aren't as effective due to weight transfer - but that should certainly improve it.

Thanks. My front brakes have replaceable inserts. I think I'm going to put these shoes on the back:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shimano-Ulteg ... Sw~OVWv159

I've enough experience to know that I can get better rear braking than I have now, but the front braking is pretty much as good as I've ever had. While the brake shoes cost a bit, there's £4 value or so in the pads that come with them.