Rear tire changed: back brake not working properly

Princess's Man

Princess's Man

Banned
Recently got my rear tire changed, and lost a lot of my rear braking power.

Tried pumping my rear brake, but still not at 100%. My rear brake's now at about 20% of what it was before the tire change.

Any ideas? Should I continue pumping the rear brake? I've probably already pumped a good 200 times now. I guess I can take it apart, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do or look out for...
 
I once put my rear wheel on with both pads on one side of the disc lol...check that
 
Similar to Kellen's point, look at the arrangement of pads/disc for anything obviously wrong (i.e.. missing pad).

Who changed your tire? Is there any chance they did something stupid like accidentally pressing the brakes while the disc was out and popped the piston? If that happened, bleeding them could fix them (time is money, I have seen some shops do very scary things to get jobs out as fast as possible).
 
Post a few close-up pics of your caliper.

Maybe the mechanic put his greasy hands on your pads.
 
The spacer/retention clip may not have been seated properly therefore it is binding.
Get a flash light and look at things closely, something will look odd.
Look at the dirt stains, if you are now seeing a clean shiny area that could be a sign that something is not installed properly.

Kudos to you for asking:cool:
 
Thanks everyone for the replies!

Kellen, I'll look out for anything out of the ordinary with my pads. My bike's at a friend's place now, and will look at it when I'm there this week.

GreyGhost: I actually got my tires changed from a reputable mechanic that everyone on GTAM seems to speak highly of (I think next time, when I read these positive reviews, I'll need to take it with a *large* grain of salt). I also asked the mechanic to adjust the tension on my chain. He ended up tensioning it too tight, as I later checked with my owner's manual. I guess the lesson here is: it's always best just to do it yourself! :)

When I get the brakes off, I'll give the calipers a wipe down, and see if that helps (as Daught pointed out). If not, I'll do what starboy869 suggests and bleed the brakes.

Thanks again! Hopefully, this will solve the issue.
 
-D- said:
The spacer/retention clip may not have been seated properly therefore it is binding.
Get a flash light and look at things closely, something will look odd.
Look at the dirt stains, if you are now seeing a clean shiny area that could be a sign that something is not installed properly.

Kudos to you for asking:cool:
Click to expand...


Thanks, -D- for mentioning the spacer! I'll also look out for this as well.
 
I had an issue earlier where my clutch wasn't engaging. I just top up my master, press down on the handle. open bleeder screw with a hose attached to a bottle, felt the handle bottomed out, closed bleeder screw and then release the handle. rinse and repeat twice and my clutch engaging was good as gold.
 
starboy869 said:
I had an issue earlier where my clutch wasn't engaging. I just top up my master, press down on the handle. open bleeder screw with a hose attached to a bottle, felt the handle bottomed out, closed bleeder screw and then release the handle. rinse and repeat twice and my clutch engaging was good as gold.
Click to expand...


Bleeding the brakes sounds much simpler than taking off my rear brakes (although that's probably simple, too, but I've never done that before)! Thanks, starboy869! I'll give that a shot first.
 
A better idea than that: First, as others have said, make sure that you actually have pads and that they're where they should be. Also check your brake wear and the amount of fluid visible in the reservoir. After that get some brake cleaner and hose off your disk/pads a bit. A little grease, in the wrong place, can have some bad effects.
 
Spray the rotor down with brake clean. If you're getting power back slowly, then you might have some lube left over from changing the tire
 
Best thing to do is take it back and have it inspected. Any decent mechanic would be happy to rectify an issue like that - if it was caused by them.
 
Princess's Man said:
Bleeding the brakes sounds much simpler than taking off my rear brakes (although that's probably simple, too, but I've never done that before)! Thanks, starboy869! I'll give that a shot first.
Click to expand...

Before bleeding brakes, make sure you thoroughly understand the process, or else getting air inside the master cylinder can make a half hr job into 2hrs
 
Simplest way to bleed brakes is to put a hose on the bleeder screw. Put the hose in a bottle with a bit of brake fluid at the bottom, loose the bleeder and pump the brake. Make sure you top up the fluid as you pump. Hard to mess it up this way.

In reality I never really needed the fluid at the bottom of the bottle. The master pulls back only a bit of brake fluid out of the hose and most out of the reservoir.
 
daught said:
Simplest way to bleed brakes is to put a hose on the bleeder screw. Put the hose in a bottle with a bit of brake fluid at the bottom, loose the bleeder and pump the brake. Make sure you top up the fluid as you pump. Hard to mess it up this way.

In reality I never really needed the fluid at the bottom of the bottle. The master pulls back only a bit of brake fluid out of the hose and most out of the reservoir.
Click to expand...

The purpose of the hose and fluid, on the bleeder side, is to have some fluid in the hose so that gravity pulls it, and the fluid from the caliper out, ensuring that you don't get air in the caliper. You know; like siphoning gas.
 
daught said:
Simplest way to bleed brakes is to put a hose on the bleeder screw. Put the hose in a bottle with a bit of brake fluid at the bottom, loose the bleeder and pump the brake. Make sure you top up the fluid as you pump. Hard to mess it up this way.

In reality I never really needed the fluid at the bottom of the bottle. The master pulls back only a bit of brake fluid out of the hose and most out of the reservoir.
Click to expand...

If I'm lazy I just release the nozzle at the calipers & let gravity does its job. Its where you pump & RELEASE the brake where noobs get it wrong
 
Rob MacLennan said:
The purpose of the hose and fluid, on the bleeder side, is to have some fluid in the hose so that gravity pulls it, and the fluid from the caliper out, ensuring that you don't get air in the caliper. You know; like siphoning gas.
Click to expand...

Yes, but the first pump always puts out more fluid than it will ever pull in.
 
GreyGhost said:
Similar to Kellen's point, look at the arrangement of pads/disc for anything obviously wrong (i.e.. missing pad).
Click to expand...

I qualified with it like that before I noticed lol
 
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