Replace Brake Pads on Mountain Bikes

Video Transcript

I removed the rotor in the caliper from the fork leg because it gives me more room to work with. I'm also going to loosen up the caliper on the adapter, so that I have more room to work with as well. So this is a 5 millimeter Allan wrench fitting. Just take it, move it to the left, because bolts on the bike loosen to the left and tighten to the right. And you can see, now I have plenty of room for things to rock around here. So I've got my pads; I'm going to pretend I just took them out of their package. Avid pads do not come with this spring. So make sure when you are removing your brake pads, you don't lose this spring. It's small, it can get lost, and it does in a parking lot. Sometimes, because its a spring and its made out of metal, it gets fatigued. And if that's the case, you need to contact your local bike shop and they can get you more of these springs. But it's not the kind of thing you usually see sitting around on a shelf, and it doesn't come with the pads. We put our spring on, sort of make a spring sandwich with our brake pads. Line up the hole in the pads with the raised area of the spring. Push the spring down, make sure it's fully seated. Push the pads together. And then we want to make sure we have the relief in the pads lined up with the pistons. Like with the Avid brake, we want to put the pistons back in before we replace things. We can use a 10 millimeter wrench to push that back in, or a 9 millimeter wrench, is what they suggest, because these pistons are a little bit smaller. Smaller pistons actually create more force because the displacement - and just the way fluid dynamics work - a smaller piston creates more force both here in the master cylinder and also at the caliper.

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