[tealboy1]

My old hayes were acting up so i ordered new Hayes. They were on clearance at Chainreaction (which is a disappointing experience in iteself). They are called Hayes sol1e (I may be off slightly on exact model). The rating on the brakes were not terrific but i live in Florida so no hills. I installed the brakes and bled them but they don't have great stopping power. I can not lock the rear tire up and, I am getting a slight squeal. I did not replace the disc, the local shop said they look fine but they are in fact old.

The brakes are not spongey and feel like they are working right, but the stopping power feels to be 60% of what they should be. What are symptoms of a bad disc? I'm not sure what else it can be except the disc though the disc looks fine. The local bike shop did not do the install but last time i was there, he lightly heated the disc with a torch to burn off residue and then wiped with rubbing alochol. He said they should be fine but somethign isn't right. thx for the help

 

[Prophet Julio]

Get some new pads. Sounds like oil contamination. Clean the rotor before you put the new pads in.

 

[project_d]

Your experience sounds exactly the same as a few of my buddies who rode those breaks. Sounds like those particular type of Hayes brakes just suck.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

 

[Cleared2land]

So help me understand this...you say the brakes are NOT spongy. Are they firm as they should be or are they just not really spongy? My XT's are solid and very firm. Are yours 'firm'? How far can you squeeze them? How do they compaire to how you feel like they should be?

If the pads were to have become contaminated,, usually that can be rectified by a thorough scrubbing with Acetone, MEK, or a good contact cleaner. Some have had good results from baking in the oven, but I wouldn't know what temp to set.

 

[tealboy1]

I will double ck for pad comtamination tomorrow. Will it be obvious if i spilled some dot on the? What about the rotors, no one really said what symtoms i might exp with bad rotors or whether that is a likely problem...

 

[thickfog]

Did you ever bed them in? No brakes work well until you do this. Riding them to do this is hit or miss.

Do 20-30 near stops from a good speed. Just brake firmly and don't fully stop. Once you slow to track stand speed, pedal to full speed and repeat.

The pads and rotors need to transfer material to each other. They will not work well until this is done.

Squealing new brakes is a sign of brake pad glazing. The pads got hot enough to glaze over, but a material transfer between pad and rotor never happened.

If so, remove pads and sand them slightly to remove glaze. Clean with alcohol. Also clean your rotors with alcohol. After all this do the bed in procedure.

They'll work fine more then likely.

 

[tealboy1]

Update...i followed some suggestions here and wanted to share some observations. No fluid on the pads however i noticed the very small amt of wear that is beginning to show up is on about 50 percent of the pad. Would this suggest a rotor problem, warped? Or something else?

 

[Triaxtremec]

Take the pads out put them in the oven for 10 minutes to bake any contaminates out. Then put then back in once cooled.

 

[Cleared2land]

Take the pads out put them in the oven for 10 minutes to bake any contaminates out. Then put then back in once cooled.

Aren't we leaving something to the readers imagination here? What temp would we be toasting these at? Ten minutes doesn't really seem very long to cook out any significant contaminates, but I've never enjoyed hot, fresh baked pads either.

 

[DethWshBkr]

I'm wondering if there is any air in there.
My dad got a set of Hayes Prime Comps, and we shortened up the hoses on both front and rear. Rear was perfect, but when we did the front, we got a little TINY air bubble in them.
The lever felt "firm", but did take a little extra travel to engage. When holding the lever in hard, I could not turn the wheel by hand. We knew something was a little off though, since the lever changed actuation point.

Manually bled the brakes off the bike, and suddenly the lever became just like it was from factory.

I mention this, because you said you had to bleed the brakes. If even the tiniest bit of air got in there, you will lost some power, but the brakes will still "work" pretty well.

 

[ridebikeme]

I too, would have to wonder if there is air in the lines?? And although this might sound like a stupid question, once you bled the brakes, are you sure you used the correct fluid ? You also mentioned wear on the new pads, was that after that you "bed" them in?

 

[Cleared2land]

I too, would have to wonder if there is air in the lines?? And although this might sound like a stupid question, once you bled the brakes, are you sure you used the correct fluid ? You also mentioned wear on the new pads, was that after that you "bed" them in?

The OP doesn't seem to be following a logical order in troubleshooting this problem. Pose a question to help out and you'll likely get no response. Maybe he just needs to top off the radiator fluid.

 

[DethWshBkr]

The OP doesn't seem to be following a logical order in troubleshooting this problem. Pose a question to help out and you'll likely get no response. Maybe he just needs to top off the radiator fluid.

Is this another instance of the muffler bearings failing, or having the red powerband installed, instead of the green one? We all know the green one is the fastest....

 

[Cleared2land]

Is this another instance of the muffler bearings failing, or having the red powerband installed, instead of the green one? We all know the green one is the fastest....

Now, if you're a little more of an adventure mechanic and not so feared of getting your hands dirty, you might consider doing a reverse gongulating diode adjustment. Only problem with this technique is getting the kanooter valve out of sync with the flux detector. If that happens, you'll never get it fixed. Just give up!

 

[bob13bob]

I had those brakes, they can work ok,, but are very meh.. They are single piston design and very old.

if you have contaminated rotor, the shop took care of it. but you need to burn of the brakes pads as well if they were contaminated, do a search on here for how to do it.

 

[tealboy1]

Did you ever bed them in? No brakes work well until you do this. Riding them to do this is hit or miss.

Do 20-30 near stops from a good speed. Just brake firmly and don't fully stop. Once you slow to track stand speed, pedal to full speed and repeat.

The pads and rotors need to transfer material to each other. They will not work well until this is done.

Squealing new brakes is a sign of brake pad glazing. The pads got hot enough to glaze over, but a material transfer between pad and rotor never happened. Quote

This was it, bedding, u nailed it thank u. Brakes working fine now!

 

[thickfog]

Happy riding man!