Hayes brake adjustment

[R1 GTR]

Ok ok, this is going to be embarrasing but i cant for the life of me work out where to adjust the brake strength. There is too much play on the lever at the minute and i want more response from them. They are Hayes Sole Hydralic brakes.

[Moreymach]

Im pretty sure there is no adjustment on the Sole brakes.

I had them on my bike oem and changed them to Hope Mini's. Still no adjustment to speak of but they do feel nicer.

[PomBstard]

Check just inside the base of the lever - look for a small allen screw that will adjust the lever. This works on Hayes Nine, no idea about Hayes Sole.

[snotrag]

Wrong wrong wrong!

Firstly - the adjustment on the inside of the lever - that adjusts the reach of the lever. NOT the bite point. By screwing it in you simply change the distance between the lever blade and the handlebar - this is used to account for people with different reaches/finger lengths.

This should be adjusted so that when you pull it as hard as you can, the lever blade only just misses the knuckles of the fingers that are wrapped round the bar. You should be able to comfortable get two fingers round the blade without stretching aways from the bars.

The hayes sole is a slightly basic, One sided hydraulic piston (just like the single sided, sliding calipers on most everyday cars). However, instead of the caliper sliding, the disc rotor simply bends a little between the pads.

The adjustment comes from the fixed pad - if you look on the inside face of the caliper there is a 5mmish allen socket - screwing this in winds the pad closer/further from the opposite side. You use this to account for wear in the pads.

You should wind this in to close the gap between the pads, this will reduce the amount of lever travel before the pads bite. Once you have found your desired 'gap', you will probably find your brake now rubs a lot.

So, loosen the 2 bolts that attach the caliper to the carrier bracket. The holes that these pass through will be slightly slotted, so now the caliper will be free to 'float' in and out.

Now, get a mate to jam on the brake as hard as possible - this will centre the brake over the rotor. Now, if you carefully do up the brake mounting bolts, this should set the brake so it doesn't rub.

This process can also be done using bits of folded up paper as shims - its a bit fiddly, but its the way to get 'tight' feeling brakes, yet ones which dont rub.

Of course - if this doesn't improve the feel, and there is a sponginess at the lever, your brakes need bleeding.

[R1 GTR]

Thanks Snotrag. Already knew about the reach, which i will adjust once ive got the bite sorted. Will give it a try later. I did notice the disc bends into the calliper when you apply the brakes and did wonder why it does that, so thats another thing answered.

There does seem to be someone to sort anything on PH, top people!

[snotrag]

The single sided calipers do work really well, you just got to keep on top of the adjustment.

Where a dual piston caliper would automatically account for pad wear, you need to continually adjsut the single sided type, just a teeny bit at time.

Dead easy once you know

[PomBstard]

snotrag said:

Wrong wrong wrong!

Absolutely right - that'll teach me for not reading the question properly!