okay so here we're going to take a look
at the braking system so this is my
friend's bike uh and he set up his front
brakes himself because he wanted to do
it and as you can see they're not really
set up equally nor they are they working
too well I've tested the bike so when I
press the uh bicycle brake lever this is
what happens first this this lever
moves before this lever even starts
moving so it rubs against the the uh
tire
wall all right now the other part starts
moving and as you can see it's
compressed way too um too much which
means the the brake isn't doing much
work it's not pressing the brake pads
against the the side wall of the uh rim
and this means that even while holding
the
brake here the brake work already and
it's just giving way way too easy so
there are a few things we can do really
easily because this is also a very
common problem I encounter while uh
repairing bicycles so let me just change
my angle and then then I can show what
we can do to fix
it as you can see from this angle the
brake pads have a uh thin spacer here
and a thick spacer in the back now this
should actually be the the other way
around while the thick spacer should be
here and the thin one should be here so
I'm going to show you how to change it
you'll need a 5 mm hex
um wrench I guess and just put it in in
this in the hole and
just release it all right like
so now you can take this off with a with
some finger
action all right and now be careful
because this spacers they always want to
fall off and go who knows
where like
so so we take the thin ones
off and we put the thick ones back but
you you have to start with this sort of
curved
looking uh spacer you put
this on the bottom so the curved part is
at the top and then you take a thick
spacer this one here and then you put it
the curved part here and the fill it
part here they should match so from the
side
view they should go like this and what's
what this does is it allows some some
movement so you can adjust it for
different angles all right so we put
this we've changed the uh spacers now
and it's time to put it back in the
slot here and what you can do is you can
sort of support it with some fingers as
so and then you can put the thin spacers
back on the thin spacers they don't
really matter how you put it on how you
put them on just get them on there
somehow all right then you take the
nut just thread it on here gently
all right and just do thing finger
tight okay now I'm going to do the same
thing for the other side and I'm going
to show you one other thing so I changed
the uh spacer for this side as well it's
just fingertight right now the brake pad
locking uh nut and here we need to
adjust the uh brake cable because the
spacers move the brake pads inwards more
and this needs to be loosened because
right now we can put the sze together so
you unlock this bolt
here and it might be very tight right
lug it was there and just don't don't
take it out but just loosen it so the
cable moves as you can see here the
cable moves freely right so pull it out
maybe uh half an inch something like
that like I do right now I think half an
inch or about 1 and 1/2 CM some
something of the
sorts and um as you can see we have the
brake pads they're still quite loose but
it doesn't matter and what you can do
now is you
can take the brake and you can try to
put it back together to see if it's
tight enough or if it needs to be
loosened again so as you can see I'm I'm
stretching this part with the noodle and
I'm pushing this part inwards and it has
a small
slot just put the noodle top through the
slot and there it's
in Easy right and now I'm going to show
you how to adjust the brake brake
pads now adjusting the brake pads as you
can see it's quite a ways off from the
rim so loosen the nut gently just a very
very small
amount align them just so they're near
the where it should be near the rim and
now now I have a business card that I
cut
up and I can I can use it as a spacer
here and what does this this does is it
leaves some clearance for the brake pad
just slide it in in between of the rim
and the brake pad and you can use a
credit card or whatever you have lying
around but it just needs to be a very
thin piece of
something and as you can see the brake
pad is still moving moving so it's
loose and now you have to engage your
front brake just engage it fully right
as you can see it's hitting the uh Rim
now and now tighten the
nut not too
tight and now
release
and as you can see the spacer fell out
but now you should be able ble to see if
it's working uh if it's uh aligned or
not and as you can see as you can see it
looks pretty aligned because it's uh the
whole brake pad is hitting the rim
itself so we have this side covered I'm
going to do do the other side and then
I'm going to show you some other
adjustments now while I'm using this uh
brake while I'm engaging it you can see
that this side moves
uh starts moving before and it actually
hits the rim before this side does and
what this does is it um it bends the rim
sideways and eventually it loosens uh
Spokes and it's not really good for the
Health and Longevity of the bike so when
I engage the brake you can see that this
side moves
first hits the side wall of the rim and
actually pushes the rim
to to this
side as you can see it's bending the rim
so this is considered pretty bad and
there's a really easy way to fix this if
your brakes are
misaligned um on this side here you have
a small bolt or a screw rather
and as you can see it's slightly uh out
it's not fully uh driven in while this
side is now now you can either loosen
this side slightly or tighten this side
slightly I'm going to tighten this side
and show you how it changes the uh
changes the alignment because the brake
Rim brake spring is actually inside this
housing and if you drive this screw
inwards more it offsets and moves this
brake
arm away from the rim so just going to
do
it I have a flathead screwdriver here
but you can use a Phillips driver as
well these usually take both so do one/
half
turn all
right and now let's try the brake
again as you can see both sides are
moving much more
equally and they are engaging the rim
pretty much dead center all right so
let's try a test once more see if it's
bending the
rim as you can see it's still very very
slightly bending the rim so I'm going to
do one quarter turn on top just hold it
bicycle tight one quarter
turn all right and now I'm going to test
it
again see much better