Specialized Vado 3 Brake Upgrade??

[lewes5]

I am thinking about upgrading the brakes on my Vado 3 to 203 front rotors and 180 rear rotors.

i assume increasing the rotor sizes would also require changing the calipers as well. Am I correct?

thanks in advance.

cheers

 

[Nova Haibike]

I do not know how the calipers are mounted on the Vado, but usually you can change or add adapters to allow the calipers to clear larger rotors. That said, such large rotors on that type of bike is overkill (unless you happen to live in a mountainous area).

 

[Deacon Blues]

Lewes5, why do you think you need bigger brakes? Are you experiencing brake fade?

 

[Sierratim]

We live in a mountainous area. I did this upgrade on my Vado 5. The calipers did not need to be changed, but adapters were needed front and rear.

I moved the original front 180mm rotor to the rear and installed a new 203mm rotor in the front.

Works quite well. A noticable improvement on steep downhill braking.

 

[Sierratim]

Here's a pic of the front caliper with the Shimano adapter in place. The rear is similar, but with a different adapter. Note the UP arrow on the adapter. The rear adapter works with the adapter's arrow pointing generally down, towards the front of the bike. The caliper mounting screws were new with the adapters and included blue (removeable) thread lock.

The rotor screws for the 180mm rotor were reused. I applied fresh blue thread lock to these screws before installing. The rotor screws are tough to remove. I ended up using my impact driver for this.

The most time consuming part of this process was centering the calipers over the rotors to prevent the pads from rubbing. I started with the caliper mounting bolts loose then squeezed the brake lever firmly. Tightening the bolts with the brake lever still pulled firmly pretty much centers the caliper, but not perfectly. I had to fine adjust one caliper and true up one rotor to prevent the pads from rubbing.

 

[Sierratim]

This video explains quite well.

Park Tool does have a wonderful set of FREE professionally produced instructional videos covering just about any maintenance topic you can think of. Naturally they promote their line of tools, but use the tools you've got is my moto.

 

[fooferdoggie]

or save the hassle and buy this guy it makes it fast and easy to setup the caliper.

Hayes Feel'r Gauge Disc Brake Alignment Tool [98-23972] at BikeTiresDirect

A tool that makes it easy to adjust and align disc brake calipers and pads with the rotor. [98-23972]

www.biketiresdirect.com

 

[steve marino]

That's a handy tool for setting the brake pad clearance, but how much time does it take to adjust the brakes on a caliper anyway? Not long. Run them in until they're tight, back them off a little, spin the wheels to check, and you're good to go. The rotor has to run true to begin any sort of adjustment, that's a given. On my calipers, there's an allen bolt on the back side to run the back pad in and out. Just looking at the pads and how they set on the rotor should give you all the information one would need to do this simple job. It's only tricky the first time you do it, and on a setup like mine w/ a separate allen adjustment for the back pad, that alignment tool won't help you anyway.

 

[Sierratim]

or save the hassle and buy this guy it makes it fast and easy to setup the caliper.

Hayes Feel'r Gauge Disc Brake Alignment Tool [98-23972] at BikeTiresDirect

A tool that makes it easy to adjust and align disc brake calipers and pads with the rotor. [98-23972]

www.biketiresdirect.com

Online reviews indicate that it's a real time saver for Hayes brakes, but not so much for Shimano. Reviewers recommend the process the Park Tool video demonstrates.

 

[Sierratim]

That's a handy tool for setting the brake pad clearance, but how much time does it take to adjust the brakes on a caliper anyway? Not long. Run them in until they're tight, back them off a little, spin the wheels to check, and you're good to go. The rotor has to run true to begin any sort of adjustment, that's a given. On my calipers, there's an allen bolt on the back side to run the back pad in and out. Just looking at the pads and how they set on the rotor should give you all the information one would need to do this simple job. It's only tricky the first time you do it, and on a setup like mine w/ a separate allen adjustment for the back pad, that alignment tool won't help you anyway.

Do you have hydraulic or mechanical disc brakes?

 

[fooferdoggie]

Online reviews indicate that it's a real time saver for Hayes brakes, but not so much for Shimano. Reviewers recommend the process the Park Tool video demonstrates.

works great on my magura brakes.

 

[lewes5]

Thank you all for your comments and advice. Its very clear to me that I need to become more knowledgeable about the parts and operation of hydraulic disk brakes.
No, I don’t ride in mountainous areas but I’ve hade to make two emergency stops at intersections. I believe I would be more comfortable with faster stoping power. I have experience no brake fade.

Again, thanks for the input. Exactly what I was hoping for.

chuck