Are you an avid mountain biker? Even if you aren't, if you ride with disc brakes (which are starting to become the norm), then you are at risk of bending your disc brake rotor. Read on and discover how to fix one that has been bent.
They’ll Only Stop A person If They Are Working Properly!
There are very few mountain bikes produced these days that do not have these installed. Can you guess what I am talking about; disc type brakes. Disc brakes have been available for quite a while however they are becoming the brake of choice for the dirt trails for one simple reason; they work well. Unfortunately though, if you do enough cycling you may be forced to make a few repairs to them. What follows is a discussion of a surprisingly easy, yet extremely effective way to make repairs on your damaged brakes assisting you to get back biking again.
Challenge - They're Quite Exposed!
One of the main reasons for disc brakes being susceptible to damage is the reality that the rotors (which is the disc that the brake pads lock on to) are perched out beside your tire just waiting to get hit and bent. It is quite easy (as I discovered) to bend one and once bent, let the squealing get started. Disc brakes operate by letting compact brake pads (which are hidden in a metal housing) to press a metal rotor which is connected to your tire, thereby slowing you down. The metal rotor has just enough room to go into the brake pad housing. Just about any small bend on your rotor and you are going to be rubbing against your brake pads. The sound of the rubbing is going to be aggravating but what is even worse is the fact that you are now riding with partial brakes that are on continuously since the rotor is automatically rubbing against the pads.
Slight bends can be repaired quite swiftly so let's get started on the repair.
This Is The Repair You Have Been Awaiting
To start off with you will have to un-attach the brake housing (that is usually located on your fork). For this stage, a hex key will be needed to enable you to remove the housing mounting bolts. As soon as the bolts are taken off, your brake housing will simply lift off of the frame. Get a plastic zip tie and fasten it to the fork so that the end is protruding towards your rotor (it's going to be used as a make shift depth gauge).
Utilizing your plastic tie as a depth gauge, rotate your tire and watch the gap between your rotor and the strip (you are looking for gaps). As you turn your wheel, you will definately get a reasonably obvious picture concerning where your rotor is bent out of alignment. Once you discover where all these out of alignment areas are, simply take an adjustable wrench and steadily flex the rotor in those areas where it requires re-shaping.
Once this section has been re-bent, you will have to turn your tire all over again and re-test the rotor align with your plastic tie. Continue bending your rotor steadily and you'll discover that it is going to return into close alignment like it was prior to being damaged.
When you are contented with your serviced rotor's positioning, then the only thing that remains is to cut off the plastic zip strip, and re-install the bolts which connect your brake housing to your fork. Now that the brake pads are back on the bike, rotating your tire should really produce hardly any rubbing between your pads and the rotor.
Time for you to Step Back and Feel Satisfied With a Good Job
Once you have repaired the damaged rotor, get on out to the trails and give it a try. The preceding approach is quite simple to learn and good thing because if you do any amount of trail riding, then there's a very good chance of you having to make use of it more than once. This shouldn’t be a difficulty for you because you now know what to do, right?
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