Avid Elixir R piston issue
surrpaul
Posts: 48
Hello,
Right, I had my bike turned upside down while I washed it recently, and fortunantely, I pulled on the rear brake lever to stop the rear wheel from rotatating. At the point the brake grabbed the wheel vibrated to a halt. The sound was reminscent oftwanging a ruler over a desk. Weird.
The hub seems fine and the skewers are nice and [appropriately] tight, so I unscrewed the the caliper bolts to look further... One pad appeared barely used, whilst the other had totally worn away: these were brand new pads and only used once at Sherwood Pines, so nowhere too harsh. I removed the pads, pulled on the rear brake lever and observed what the pistons were up to. It appears one piston is working properly (so that repeated depressing of the brake lever causes the piston to move out) while the other piston only moves out a bit and then goes back in again. The latter piston clearly isn't functioning correctly.
What's happening? Am I going to have to split the caliper?
Thanks,
Paul.
Right, I had my bike turned upside down while I washed it recently, and fortunantely, I pulled on the rear brake lever to stop the rear wheel from rotatating. At the point the brake grabbed the wheel vibrated to a halt. The sound was reminscent oftwanging a ruler over a desk. Weird.
The hub seems fine and the skewers are nice and [appropriately] tight, so I unscrewed the the caliper bolts to look further... One pad appeared barely used, whilst the other had totally worn away: these were brand new pads and only used once at Sherwood Pines, so nowhere too harsh. I removed the pads, pulled on the rear brake lever and observed what the pistons were up to. It appears one piston is working properly (so that repeated depressing of the brake lever causes the piston to move out) while the other piston only moves out a bit and then goes back in again. The latter piston clearly isn't functioning correctly.
What's happening? Am I going to have to split the caliper?
Thanks,
Paul.
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Comments
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The other piston is probably just a bit sticky.. so the path of least resistance is to push the other piston out more.
Take out the pads and push the other piston back into the caliper. Hold that piston in and pump the brake lever so that the sticky piston is pushed out - not too far though, about 3-4mm should be enough.
Next, smear some brake fluid around the sticky piston (the bit that will go into the caliper) - a cotton bud is quite good for this. Then, push the sticky piston back into the caliper.
Repeat this a few times and you should hopefully get to the point where the sticky piston is sticky no more!0 -
Thank you very much. I'll let you know how I get on
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