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horrible vibration from HFX-9s?

971 Views 7 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  downhill2004
I have an '04 Fuji Tahoe that came with Avid mechanical discs...I decided to upgrade to HFX-9s, swapping out the rotors and everything else. After the break-in period I've started to get terrible vibration off the back brake. It makes a terrible racket and the noise is coming from everywhere...even the handlebars are "singing". I end up locking up the rear brake just to get the racket to stop!

I have adjusted the caliper position a number of times, and they look spot-on now, centered along the rotor top and bottom and evenly spaced side to side.

Is this an adjustment issue or something else? Is there any way to dampen the vibration?
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rotor pix

If It's any help, here are two pix of the rear rotor...this is after 50 miles or so of street riding.

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downhill2004 said:
I have an '04 Fuji Tahoe that came with Avid mechanical discs...I decided to upgrade to HFX-9s, swapping out the rotors and everything else. After the break-in period I've started to get terrible vibration off the back brake. It makes a terrible racket and the noise is coming from everywhere...even the handlebars are "singing". I end up locking up the rear brake just to get the racket to stop!

I have adjusted the caliper position a number of times, and they look spot-on now, centered along the rotor top and bottom and evenly spaced side to side.

Is this an adjustment issue or something else? Is there any way to dampen the vibration?
Hopefully that goes away after the pads bed in, but my Hayes 9 rear brake still howls more often that I would like (I can feel it right up through the saddle) and I've never been able to eliminate the problem. Make sure all the bolts are torqued to specification. Good luck.
were you disc tabs faced? If not you can try doing that. Sometimes if the adapter isn't sitting flush with the frame you can get vibrations. Wheel/skewer tight? Also it wouldn't hurt to clean the rotors and pads as well as with rubbing alcohol.
Facing could be an issue. Your pads are grabbing a tiny bit low on the rotor. Space the caliper up just slightly. Check that your pads aren't unevenly worn.
I found it took a little bit to get the set up just right. In my case, after what I had thought was a reasonable break in time, I was getting a lot of singing and some vibration.

I ended up pulling the wheels out and using some fine emery cloth in a figure 8 pattern on the rotors, using a nice flat surface to give the pads a sanding too and then cleaning the whole works out well with rubbing alcohol. When I put it all back together, I checked and set all the clearances and haven't heard a peep or felt a vibration since.
EBC Green pads solved the problem for me. They do wear a lot faster than the semi-metallic pads.
does anyone know which material are the stock pads that came with the hfx-9s?
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