 In this video we will walk through the mounting and adjustment for these side pole caliper brakes. Make sure you're watching the caliper mounting and adjustment video that matches your brake type. If you're not sure what you're dealing with, watch this video. The side pole caliper brake is named because the cable is pulling off to the side. Both caliper irons share a single pivot in the middle. Do not confuse the side pole with the similar looking dual pivot. In the dual pivot it is pulled from the side. However, each arm has a separate pivot. Typical tools needed for side pole caliper adjustment may be hex wrenches to fit. Box and wrenches thin wrenches for centering and for adjusting the pivot. The obw3 for the spring style centering. Adjustable wrenches for bending fruto, a fourth hand such as the VT2, torque wrench with sockets to fit and a cable cutter. We remove the tire so the camera can have a better view. The side pole brakes mount with the center pivot or center stud to the frame or fork. It's common to have concave washers that match the radius of the fork. We install the brake with a washer on the front and a washer on the back. The nut will be then secured or common torque being 8 Newton meters. Hold the brake approximately centered as best you can and secure the mounting nut. After the caliper is mounted, next comes pad adjustment. These pads swing on an arc downward toward the rim. We're going to try and set the top edge of the pad to the top edge of the braking surface, but never so high we could hit the tire. Most side poles have a simple mounting system. The arm has a brake pad with flat washers. This allows for setting height up and down. We can set the front and back edge square to the rim. Unlike the convex concave washer systems that allow for toe with the pad, most systems lack that feature. Wusen the brake mounting nut, move the pad to the rim and inspect. Come up as high as you can, but do not hit the tire or go beyond the braking surface. Make sure the front and back edge are square to the rim. And secure the mounting nut typically to 6 Newton meters. Hold the pad while you do this so it doesn't twist. Repeat on the other side. Next we attach the cable from the brake lever. Feed the cable through the barrel adjuster. Back it out two or three turns. Alternatively, back out the adjusting barrel at the brake lever at the same amount. Feed the cable through the pinch bolt. And then we will draw the pads to the rim and tighten the nut. This is a good use of a 4-thin tool such as the BT2 from Park Tool. Secure the pinch bolt, typically a 5 Newton meter pork. Test the pinch bolt and settle the cable in by pulling with force at the brake lever. You don't want any slipping at the pinch mechanism. A pad setting that can be very useful is called toe. Toe can be used to reduce brake squeal. Toe is adjusting the pad so the leading edge strikes first with the trailing edge having a slight gap. When the rim rotates forward and the whole pad strikes it, it tends to pull the caliper arms back. They come back and forth quickly as the rim rotates. That sets up a harmonic resonance called squeal. Adjusting the pad so that the front edge strikes first helps reduce that resonance. Most simple brakes such as this one lack a separate adjustment feature in the brake pad system. It is common procedure to slightly bend the arms to allow for toe. Goal is only important when there is brake squeal. If the brake is used and there is no squeal in the system, the toe is not required. When bending for toe, it is best to use two adjustable wrenches. One for each size. This will help minimize stress on the center pivot. Here we are flexing each arms slightly. Then we will check, gently squeezing and see if we have a small gap at the back. On each side. This case I have a slight gap on our left, on our right. We still don't have a gap. Here we will hold with the left one and try and increase the gap on the right. There we are. Here a slight edge on the back. Contacting the front will help reduce the squeal. There is an alternative to bending the arm. There are pad systems that allow for setting toe. This brake has a convex and concave washer system that allows us to pivot the brake along that plane. Then we can tighten and have our toe. A technique that can help us is to use a simple shim at the back, such as a rubber band. I have used the lever to bring the pad to the rim. We will have some self-aligning of the convex concave washers. Do your final security on the pads. If we take off the shim, a slight gap is seen at the back for our toe. We set the pad clearance by feel at the lever. Here the slightest pull we feel contact at the rim. This brake is too tight. We are going to have trouble centering our pads when it is this tight. If the wheel comes out of true at all, it is going to rub. We can add slack to the system by turning the barrel adjuster downward into the brake. That widens our pad to the rim. As an option, you can turn the barrel adjuster into the lever for the same effect. We will now center the pads to the rim. Depending on the design of the brake, there are different techniques. In this design, we are going to use the OBW3 brake tool from Park Tool Company. These two prongs are going to engage in the springs behind the caliper arms. A second wrench is going to go behind on the brake nut. In this case, both wrenches are going to go up together to move the pads. Squeeze the lever and see where the pads settle in. A little bit more. If it looks centered, it is centered. All centering techniques involve moving the pivot stud. On the common side pull brake, you will often find a double nut in front. As an alternate to using the tool behind the spring, we can select one of these two nuts in front in addition to the mounting nut in back. These two nuts in front control the pivot and the play in the arms. They are tightened against one another under tension. So with the wrench on the mounting nut behind, we can take a thin wrench such as the OBW4 and select one of these two nuts. In this case, we need to move the pivot bolt clockwise. Select the outer nut in this case because it will main tension against the inner nut. Both wrenches together the same amount at the same time. That moves the pivot stud and that moves our arms. If we overshot or needed to come back counterclockwise, you need to switch to the inner nut and again the back mounting nut. This nut will want to maintain tension against the outer nut when moving in a counterclockwise direction. Squeeze and check the centering between your attempts. There are some models that have a machine stud designed for a thin wrench. The OBW4 has four sizes depending on the model. In this case, you are grabbing the stud directly. We still use a wrench behind on the mounting nut and both wrenches are moved in the same direction, the same amount, and that will move the pivot stud directly for our centering. We will now cut the cable and put an end cap in place. We only need enough cable to use a BT2 fourth hand. So that should be enough. Engage the end cap and then crimp. The brake is now ready to use. Should a brake develop a play, it can add to squeal. Play is when the two arms have a knocking between them. You grab each arm, pull them backwards and forth, you'll feel a knocking in the system. There's too much play allowed by our two adjustment nuts. Here we use a thin wrench on the adjusting nut, the inner nut, hold it steady, loosen the outer nut, and the inner nut slightly hold it and secure the lock nut. It's approximately a five-nought meter pork. Grab each arm again and feel that the play is gone. If you over tighten, they will not spring back. On the side pole design, the pads do not shove the rim back and forth. If one pad happens to touch just before, the other pad, it simply waits until the neighboring pad is contacting the rim. There is no movement back and forth in the rim itself. They don't need to touch exactly at the same time. And that concludes the process for brake caliper mounting and adjustment. If you're looking for help on a different procedure relating to rim brakes, you've got a whole series. And watch this video for an explanation how we've organized our rim brake video content. Thanks for watching and be sure to subscribe for the latest from Park Tool.