Hayes stroker trail gone all stiff

After Mondays rain my lever is more difficult to move and then doesn't return very quickly. Anybody had this? Guess I'm gonna have to send it somewhere to be fixed. It was fine Monday night though.

Quite possible it's just a stiff/dirty lever blade pivot, a clean and lube may sort it out.Be careful not to get any lube near the piston assembly or top cap as some are mineral based and will attack the seal material, and cause it to soften and swell.(this can also cause a stiff lever, and may well be the cause of your problem too.)

The lever is really loose at the pivot, it must be the seals. Had this with formula oro's a while back.

They are american brakes I guess, not designed to cope with water.

I believe this is quite a common issue. It certainly was with mine but with a bit of TLC you can get them going again.

It is probably a sticky lever piston, the bit that pushes into the reservoir. IIRC you can ask Hayes to send out a wee repair kit as they apparently put the wrong grease or sommat in a some batches of the brakes.

I coaxed mine back into life by disassembling the lever/piston and cleaning the inside with the relevant dot fluid, pushing the pads back, squeezing, cleaning, repeat repeat a few times and it was good. For a while. But as it is a bit of a defect unless you fancy having to go through this rigmarole every few rides either get the proper repair kit off Hayes or ask your LBS. Mine also has pretty sticky pistons which go the same cleaning treatment. Also helped.

Kev

Thanks Kev, suppose I will have to bleed them again after? Only did it a few months ago and found it a bit of a pain. Might just send it to hayes.

mudmonster, no, no need to bleed, as your only disasembling the push rod in the lever that depresses the piston in the cylinder. So it's – pull lever to depress piston, take of circlip that holds in the pushrod, clean round inside of cylinder. at caliper end, give the outside of exposed pistons a good clean round witha cootton bud and relevant DOT (5.1?) push the pistons back into the housing, which pushes the piston in the lever back up again.

Repeat.

Christ, am I making this any more clear? 😯 😆

It was acutally quite simple, just a bit of a faff. Sadly it doesn't last that long, as the lever pistons really need the upgraded grease from Hayes to prevent it happening.

Kev

I just dribbled some wet lube down into the piston chamber, pumped the piston a few times and it hasn't re-occurred since November (I rebuilt the brake with the fix kit from hayes when the first piston got stuck down and jammed early last year), I take the point about corrosion of the seals, but been using wet lube on Fork stantions for a few years, and haven't seen it have any effect on seals when they have been stripped.

ymmv