Very noisy front brake on cycle

House_Martin

jack_pott wrote: »

You need to set the brake blocks with some toe-in.

How is that achieved please ?. In the past I can only slant the two pads a little off a horizontal plane which has at least stopped the squealing sometimes, but that isn t a true toe-in. To "toe -in " one edge of the pad has to be in front of the rear slightly, like a car tyres front wheels sometimes are .
I m not sure if that is possible with my caliper brake set-up.

[Deleted User]

Toe-in looks like this. If the pad mounting on your brake won't allow any adjustment in the correct plane, you can always taper the pad by filing away the heel.

molerat

House_Martin wrote: »

How is that achieved please ?. In the past I can only slant the two pads a little off a horizontal plane which has at least stopped the squealing sometimes, but that isn t a true toe-in. To "toe -in " one edge of the pad has to be in front of the rear slightly, like a car tyres front wheels sometimes are .
I m not sure if that is possible with my caliper brake set-up.

If you have the non adjustable caliper brakes then you put a twist in the actual caliper arm using an adjustable spanner. https://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/sidepull-brake-service
see item 5.

[Deleted User]

molerat wrote: »

If you have the cheap old fashioned caliper brakes then you put a twist in the actual caliper using an adjustable spanner.

The toe-in obviously wears away and returns the brake pad surface back parallel with the rim, and so then needs re-setting. If you were to do that by bending the caliper some more each time, you would then have to bend it all the way back to the start again after you replace the pads with new ones. You won't do that many times before you end up with a broken caliper.

Do not do this!

Richard53

jack_pott wrote: »

The toe-in obviously wears away and returns the brake pad surface back parallel with the rim, and so then needs re-setting. If you were to do that by bending the caliper some more each time, you would then have to bend it all the way back to the start again after you replace the pads with new ones. You won't do that many times before you end up with a broken caliper.

Do not do this!

Or, when the pad returns to flat against the rim, change the pad. A lot cheaper than snapping a caliper


I have done this on an old-school centre-pull (non-adjustable) caliper, and it does work. But I would have thought any caliper on a bike made in the last 20 years would have allen bolt adjusters for pad alignment.