Hey all

Appreciate some advice on a repair I need to do on a mate’s bike in time for the Heaven of the South this weekend. Symptoms:

– Rear disc really screeches and doesn’t grip properly
– Rear gears jump all over the place

Initially couldn’t work it, but penny dropped when realised that he had decided to muck around with the adjustable rear drop-outs (bike is Voodoo Bizango). I’ve tried all the normals; cleaned pads and rotor, taken pads out for inspection (they’re fine), realigned pad housing unit, cleaned up QR and focused on good fit. Nowt seems to work, situation not different.

Any thoughts? I’m going to try getting the drop-outs setup perfectly tomorrow. Could that cause disc brake screeching?

thanks

Nick

Yep. Get them aligned with the wheel out, and do them up AS TIGHT AS YOU DARE. I had an Explosif with adjustable dropouts running it single speed. I pulled the wheel out under power (usually involving going over the bars as the back whell was pulled forwards under the BB), shifting the droputs a few times. I couldn’t get them tight enough with the 5mm Allen Bolts, so swapped to some 13mm Hex heads, and cranked’em up as tight as I could without stripping the threads. Problem solved.

my kona lava dome with slidy dropouts has none of those issues!

If the sliding part of the dropout has the disc mount on it then it shouldn’t make any difference as disc to caliper alignment won’t change – the caliper could be misaligned anyway but adjusting the dropout / wheel position won’t alter that. Good to check the wheel is aligned and not ‘crabbing’ though.