Replacing the rear brake pads on the Packster for the first time was quite a challenge. I needed to get the rear wheel off the ground long enough to remove it and put it back on. To accomplish this, I parked the bike on a sidewalk staircase landing leading up to my house. The landing is a little larger than needed to have the front wheel and the center stand on the slab.
Most of the weight of the Packster is behind the center stand. I first tried to fill the box with enough weight to counteract this, but I wasn’t able to find enough weighty stuff to put in there. Instead, I used a smaller cooler and some foam to support the bottom of the bike behind the center stand. It was more stable than it sounds, which is good since having the Packster fall on me would be bad.
Disconnecting the two cables from the Nuvinci hub was pretty straightforward once I reviewed how to do it. Getting the wheels off was a matter of loosening a couple bolts. After getting the old pads out, I had push the brake pistons in. Standard hydraulic brake pad changing routine. I use a plastic tire lever to push in the pistons. Usually that part doesn’t go as well as I hope. I never feel like I get the pistons fully reset.
Getting the tire back on was tough. It’s not really that complicated, but it just wasn’t as smooth as I would have hoped. The Packster’s rear tire is really large and a lot heavier than wheels on my other bikes.
Finally, getting the Nuvinci cables hooked back up took me a lot of time. I eventually changed the order I was trying to do it – I finally attached the high cable first. That worked better.
Due to the Nuvinci, the axel setup is different on the back, and the experience was pretty different than replacing the front pads. Anyway, I got it done successfully and hope to get through it much more quickly next time.