Crank and brake issues

Having a bit of bother with the rear brake setup. Nothing to do with the Brake Therapy adapter at least, which has been flawless since I installed it.

Two other problems, though...
I noticed, I must have some air bubbles in the rear brake line, it's a bit of a pain, but I've been meaning to shorten the brake line anyway, since it's a little too long. So I'll probably bleed out the brakes over the weekend.

The other issue it the grinding noise common from the rear. I think it's down to the disk alignment. I had to shim out the rear disk from the hub to get it aligned with the brake therapy adapter, and I think it needed another shim as there was some brake rub. Also think the saw style disk makes such a bad noise if not exactly aligned. I swapped to the original Avid 160 rotor for the rear (still a bit of a saw style) and the noise was cured. I'll maybe switch back to the Hope disc once the brake are bled.

The other issue is from the crank I think. Feels like something it either loose in the crank or pedals as I get an occasional "clunk" noise when pedalling. I havent checked the bottom bracket in a while so hopefully it's something simple with that.

Looks like I'll be getting my fingers dirty at the weekend...

fun!

Disk brake frame...

Many people think that disk brake Killer V's were never produced, but as I said before they were and are really are quite a rarity to find today. Although technically not a KillerV, the CAAD3 F900 and the CAAD4 F1000-F4000 frames in 1999 to 2001 in size small had a KillerV style frame...

Such as this one...

Changing the rear hose

Well the few last bits arrive today so I got to work installing and routing the rear brake hose.

I already had the Avid Juicy Bleed kit so it was a case of draining the brake and removing the old cable. The kit had everything required including almost all tools.

First thing I attached the new hose to the rear caliper and fed cable through the modified frame cable guides.

Then it was a simple case of cutting the hose to the correct length at the lever and installing the connectors.

Then the bleeding could begin. First the hose, then the caliper and finally the lever.

I've only ever bled brakes once before so I'm no expert, but I took the bike out for a short 1 mile ride to see how it felt.

Let's just say, I'll be bleeding it again in the morning...

But the bike itself felt really nice, I just have to adjust the seat back a little.

Rear Disc Brake Adjustment

The rear brake although working well, still has a bit of rub. The Avid Juicy calipers do have alot of adjustment, but unfortunately not enough. I guess this is all down to the my somewhat weird rear brake setup.

Anyway, since the Brake Therapy solution is post mounted I just can't shim out the caliper to align centre to the rotor.

But all is not lost having just found these (Pack of 8x0.2mm)

I'll shim out the rotor with normal caliper shims until those arrive.

Installing the Brake Therapy disc adapter

To be honest the tricky bit with all this is really installing the hub kit. Once you've done that it's simply just a case of slotting on the adapter, attaching the quick release pin, bolting it to the V-brake mount and tightening the wheel.

The V-brake mounting bolt was quite long and included alot of spacer, so I trimmed the bolt down to make it a little neater looking.

The colour of the adapter is a little bit weird, but not bad I guess. However the brake caliper must be a post mount. Thankfully my Avid's are IS and post mount so it was no big deal. The adapter is set up to take a 160mm disk.

Now with the caliper in place.

I changed to the quick release lever on the rear hub, even though I'm no fan of them, but I needed to hook the Brake Therapy quick release around it. I'll probably switch back again since it looks a bit poor like this compared to the previous picture.

Pretty simple to do (excluding the slice and dice of my finger on the brake disc) and more importantly it works!

Installing the Brake Therapy hub kit

The kit consists of:

• The adapter
• V-brake mount bolt
• Bearing cone and spacers
• Spacer
• Lock nut

The first thing need is to modify the hub with the included Brake therapy hub kit.

My rear hub is a Shimano XT, and my Brake Therapy kit was order specifically for that hub.

With the wheel off, remove the rubber dust seal.

The remove the stock lock nut , spacer and bearing cone from the wheel.

This should have been a relatively simple task, but a word of warning.

REMOVE THE BRAKE DISK

My disk is a "saw" type, and without thinking when I loosened the lock nut I slipped and sliced up my finger pretty good.

Anyway after cleaning up the blood the lock nut came off without any further injuries.

Next remove the spacer and bearing cone.

Now the bearings are exposed. That's as far as the hub needs to be striped, not it's a rebuild with the Brake Therapy hub parts.

First install the new bearing cone.

This only needs to be finger tight, but it sits quite far into the hub so I had to use a flat headed screwdriver to install it fully.

Next the large spacer needs to be installed, again to finger tightness. And finally the lock nut is installed to keep everything in place.

That's it... The hub is ready to use again.

Delivery!

A double delivery today with parts. Unfortunately I got hit with paying import tax on the parts from the USA.

Firstly, the new stem arrived. I'm not building a featherweight bike so I'm not trying to go for the lightest parts, and I know this stem is heavier than the old one but I prefer the chunky look to this one.

Secondly the most interesting bit arrived. The Brake Therapy disc brake adapter. Not alot of hardware for the money, but if it does the job that all I care about.

Gears

Well the current tasks are installing the gears and chain. Always alot of readjustment need with that, but the rear cassette is install, the chain and the front and rear derailleurs.

I'll try and find time over the weekend so install the shifters and that will only really leave the rear brake to sorts out.

It will be one of the bigger jobs. The Avid Juicy Three brake come ready bled, but I have to dismantle the brake down because of the brake cable guides on the frame. They are designed only to handle V-brakes and take a cable with wire core. So I'll drill these out so I'm able to guide the hydraulic brake through these instead. I picked up an Avid Juicy bleed kit off ebay, which arrived yesterday along with the black decal set for the head tube and seat tube decals, but I'm not that happy with them as the head tube decal is way too small!

Anyway, with the brakes the big question mark is of course mounting the rear caliper to the bike. I'm putting all my hopes in the Brake Therapy solution, which is on it's way as we speak. There was a bit of a delay with the order as a tree fell on the Brake Therapy building, so their orders got a bit back logged.

But the project is nearing the end... (So now I've dug out my old '00 Jekyll frame for the next build, using up all the spare parts I have lying around.)

Good news... bad news

Well some of the parts have started to arrive, such as the new disk brakes. I made two separate orders from Chain Reaction Cycles in the UK, one for the brakes, the other for the wheels.

For some reason the brakes arrived and the wheels are floating around in some courier warehouse, apparently with insufficent/incomplete address.

Bugger...

A2Z rear disc adapter

One of the reason why I ordered the Brake Therapy disc adapter for this bike was because the cheaper alternative, the A2Z disk adapter didn't fit. The A2z adapter clamps to the rear drop out but unfortunately due to the style of the drop out the adapter just wouldn't fit.

Here's a few photos outlining the problem. The photos are flipped since the adapter wouldn't even sit on the frame unless it was upside down.

Disk brake adapter

Well I decided to try the brake disk adapter on the frame.
Not the cheapest of options, but at least the most interesting. According to Brake Therapy it should arrive in 6-10 days, right in the middle of my vacation... Perfect!

Now I need to order a new rear wheel and at the same time look for a new brake set as my old Coda Expert brake are feeling a bit agey...

Thinking ahead...

Most of the parts that were on the bike, were in ok condition, but I'll be exchanging alot of the parts that will go on the bike.

As I said before I'll install a Lefty fork on to the bike, which means installing a hydraulic disk brake on the front. One of the problems with the KillerV frame is that there are no rear disk mounts installed on the frame. So my options are limited with rear brake...

One option it to use the brake set that came with it, which are infact pretty good, Avid Ti. Another option would be to install Hydrualic V brakes on the rear such as Magura HS33.

The other option is the most interesting and by far the most expensive option. That's to go with a Brake Therapy Disk conversion. This bit of kit looks abit of a crude bolt on option, that float on the hub and attaches to the V brake mount.

I talked to Brake Therapy about installing this on the KillerV and they said it would work no problem provided I had a compatible rear hub and 160mm rotor. I had planned to buy a new rear wheel anyway so I'll just make sure I get a hub to suit.