hey everyone and welcome back to another Tuesday tip where in this video I'm going to be showing
you how to install brakes on your BMX bike so since I started making tip Tuesday videos a
couple years ago I've had a ton of requests on how to install brakes on the bike so here you
go we're doing it today we're gonna show you how to install brakes on this bike and we're going
to start with making sure that all of our hardware and braking needs to get a setup going are covered
first and foremost you're going to need a frame that can accept breaks so make sure you've gotten
the mounts whether or not they're welded on or removable they're removable put them in there
and that's what we're going to do to start so I'm not sure if you're gonna be able to tell the
difference here but this frame brake kit came with two different brake mounts not really sure why but
we're gonna put this shorter one on the side of the bottom brake arm it also came with this
little piece that goes against the frame so we're gonna put that on first and then we're just gonna
screw it into the frame and if you're doing this you don't want these to come out or come loose
especially with this design so make sure there's Loctite on there make sure there's threadlocker
of some sort because if you don't you're going to be bummed out one day when this comes loose and it
inevitably will and when you do this make sure you get it as tight as possible like I said you don't
want this one to come loose because there's no way to tighten this from the exterior of the bike now
we're gonna put the other one on which isn't as much of a worry because you can use a crescent
wrench or a wrench on this one and since we're back here already let's go ahead and throw on our
brake arms the bottom brake arm is very obvious you can tell that they have to go a certain way so
you can see here the logo goes on the top and that is how these work so the bottom one obviously has
to go on first otherwise you wouldn't be able to get it underneath so we're gonna put on the bottom
one first and then the next thing that you need to pay attention to here is the spring direction so
there are two different Springs that come with your brakes and they spring in two different
directions so when we put this on here we want to make sure that we have the correct spring so that
things work properly and we don't have to take everything apart and real quick I want to show
you guys something on the brake arm there is a hole in the brake arm for the spring end to go
into there's also one on the cap as well for the cap to go into sometimes there's two or even more
than that just in case something gets worn and we want to make sure that we line these things
up whenever we put them on so I'm going to screw in the cap just a little bit so that we can show
you guys how to tell whether or not the springs are going the correct direction whenever we have
this on here we can clearly see that the spring whines in a specific direction so you can see that
going this way is going opposite of that direction and going this way tightens the spring and that's
what we want we want the spring to tighten so let's turn the cap and you can see that it pushes
the brake pad away from the rim and when we push on it its springing the properly the way a brake
should so that means that this one is correct and we can go ahead and tighten it the rest of
the way down and then we can move on to the other side and just go ahead and put it on because we
know that we're correct now and just a quick tip that I haven't done yet because I'm going to take
this back apart for a final assembly something you should do here is grease the mounts on your brakes
make sure that you grease just the post not the inside and not the where the post goes into the
frame it'll make it a lot easier to slide your brake arms on and they will pivot a whole lot
smoother that way like I said I'm going to do that after the fact and real quick just to confirm and
show you guys again let's tighten this spring in the direction that the coil goes tightening
the spring here you can't really see it that well but it is I promise and it's pushing the pad away
from the rim you can see I'm pushing on the pad this direction and it's springing properly that
means we have the correct orientation and we can move forward with our brake install all right so
we're up at the front of the bike now to install the brake lever this one is fairly straightforward
you just pick the side that you want to put your brake lever on and put it on right next to your
grip where you want it to be most brake levers these days have hinging technology so you don't
have to worry about whether or not the grip is on and all you do is put it over the bar put your
allen bolt back in and tighten it down this one's fairly straightforward and this is definitely on
the bend of the bar all you old-school guys mid school old school guys will remember that from
the days of 2006 whenever people had really skinny bars I'm just gonna slide this grip over a little
bit and push up our brake lever because that just did not feel right we'll move the grip later okay
so now we're just tightening it all the way down all right so that seems to be all right you don't
have to tighten this down all the way right now it's not a huge deal because it will be adjusted
later and now we can move on to our brake cable which is down here on the floor normally you're
going to be starting with a brand new cable that isn't already cut to length but this cable has
been used on a previous bike so we don't have to cut it but I will go through what you would do if
you did have to cut it so next we're going to be putting on the cable and all you have to do to put
on your cable you've never done this before there is an end on your table they don't all look like
this this is just kinks design but that end goes into a slot on your brake lever then from there
you angle it into the slot and continue it you make sure that your barrel adjuster pieces are
lined up as so just kidding now as so then you off-center them a little bit so it can't come
back out one thing to consider while we're up here is the adjustment of your barrel adjuster
if you're setting up a new cable you want to leave the tiniest amount of slack in here if
you weren't planning on it just leave a tiny bit so that in case you tighten everything as tight
as it could possibly go you have some adjustment to loosen out and still have some breaks rather
than having to pull some of your cable through so we've got that handled and now we can put the
cable through to the rest of the bike so so real quick before we continue to the back of the bike
again I'm going to put this velcro strap on here to keep our cable under control now we don't have
to worry about a floppy cable going everywhere and we can work in the back of the bike easily
since we're demonstrating a straight cable setup today we will be talking about straddle cable
setups which I have the fly straddle cable setup here doesn't really matter as far as installing
the brakes goes it's all about the same so let's continue talking about this what we're gonna want
to do is thread our barrel adjuster into our cable guide here and here once again we want to leave a
little bit of adjustment just in case that might not even be enough if we get everything extremely
tight then from here we're going to thread our cable through it you could also put the barrel
adjuster onto the cable first and then do it that way doesn't really matter but it's at this point
if you had a brand new cable you would figure out the length of your cable housing so that is
totally up to personal preference I feel like the off of home improvement right now and if you're
old enough to know what that is good for you but it's all totally personal preference you just
take a look at how much slack is on your straight cable and if it feels like too much then you're
gonna cut some of this off and if it feels like not enough then you're either gonna have to buy
a new brake cable or deal with it so from here this has already been cut and if you are going
to cut this housing make sure you take me in or out first because if you don't you're going to
cut both at the same spot and you don't want that so we've got everything figured out here next up
is the straddle cable setup what I have here is the fly straddle cable setup which has just two
cable pieces with two ends on each one and then a hanger that they go in the hanger quite literally
just goes on to the end of your cable all right there we go I would keep anything that you have
to tighten on your straddle cable hanger facing downwards so that you can get to it and from here
we kind of are just figuring out where we need to be so we're gonna slide one in put it into
our hanger then we're gonna slide the other one in we're gonna put that one into our hanger and
you'll notice we haven't adjusted our break spring tension yet that is something that we
will do last in this whole process just because it is so much easier to get everything set up if
you do it before you actually set up your break spring tension so here what you're going to do
with this straddle cable setup is you're going to pull all of the slack out of your cable with the
inner so you want to make sure that your barrel adjusters are seated properly both on the back
and on the front up here everything looks good as far as that goes everything seated properly
we want to make sure that we have our adjustment in both barrel adjusters or all of your barrel
adjusters if you're doing a gyro cable setup and we're gonna pull that through get it as good as we
possibly can another thing that we can do while we have our break spring tension loose is adjust our
brake pads because they don't have any spring tension on them it makes it a lot easier to do
what you need to do and keep them in place while you're tightening it these are already good to go
but you can do it so if your brake pads are in the right place you can get all of this set up
and the last thing you'll do here is just tighten down the screw on the straddle cable setup you may
have a different looking setup but it's going to be very similar to this just because it's probably
going to be something that you tighten down in order to keep in place on your main cable whether
or not it's a cable that goes from one break arm to the other and once you get all of this set up
and tight if you pulled the proper amount of slack out of your inner cable your brake pads should be
against your rim what you can do is loosen your barrel adjusters up take out that slack and you
should have some more play here in your brake pads obviously there's not any spring tension yet and
that is the next step and that's where we're gonna leave this one because I've actually already got
two other videos about brake spring tension and how to adjust it this video was solely meant to
show you how to get everything on here because I've got a ton of videos about adjusting your
brakes dialing them in and just making them the best brakes that they can be so check out this
video right here to learn how to adjust your brake spring tension and finish off your brake setup and
when you're done with that check out the playlist right here for more tips and tricks for how to
adjust your brakes and just make them the best BMX brakes that they can be I want to thank you
guys for being here and watching I hope that you enjoy it and learn something useful if you did and
you're new hit the subscribe button down below and I will see you tomorrow for another video goodbye