Any Brake Gurus?

[l3uddha]

I cant seem to get my front caliper to function properly.

I tool the caliper off the bike to do some work.
Somewhere down the line it seems I tapped the brake lever because when I reinstalled it the pads were rubbing some.

So I took the pads off and pressed in the pistons by hand.


Now it seems that the pad will not "rebound" when the brake lever is depressed.



With the pads out, the caliper can move freely (squeeze & depress) with ease. Once the pads are installed it seems that they are causing too much friction with the pins that pass through them.

Should the brake pads be rubbing the pins at all, or just floating and not causing any friction? If friction is the problem, might it have something to do with a bad spring (part#4 on the diagram)? It seems the spring might actually be pushing the pads UP too much, out of the caliper, and causing them to interfere with the pins that hold the pads IN the caliper... if you can understand what I just wrote 


I'm gonna go pick up some brake fluid today because it needs to be changed anyways.

Any ideas?

[l3uddha]

damn that pic is huge....

[ajaxgs]

pads should just float

[natedawg120]

yeah the pads should float.  Unless the pads are mounted wrong the spring shouldn't lift them to high out of the caliper.  You might acutally have some air in the brake line as well, when you change the brake fluid make sure to bleed them real well.

[l3uddha]

yea I thought I remembered the pad should be loose within the caliper.

The spring must have bent very slightly somewhere down the line... it's too hard to tell.

It doesnt really push the pad too far out of the caliper out at all, but it puts just enough pressure on it so the pad is putting pressure on the pins that pass through it...

When I push the pad down slightly so it isn't putting any stress in the pins, the caliper can move in & out freely again...

oh well, I'll see what I can do. I guess it's a good time to do the whole brake job... dammit.