No doubt the general feeling will be to get rid, but I have just bought a three year old bike fitted with these brakes. The previous owner was happy enough with them but, whilst the rear brake is fine, the front does not come on soon enough for my liking. I prefer a brake that comes on early in the lever travel. There is no apparent sign of it needing bled.

There’s no bite point adjustment and the reach adjustment is set as far out as I can get it. Given that the identical rear is OK, is there anything that can be done to give an earlier bite point?

bleed it, following the instructions exactly with the bleed kit.

then remove syringe by lever and replace bolt. Push some fluid into the caliper before quickly replacing the bolt.

worked on elixir 3 to firm up front lever

three year old bike?

this is smack in the middle of the era when SRAM where ‘having issues’ with their lovely Elixir brake systems

I must have dealt with 100s of the offending items and all got replaced

warranty (they would basically bin the offending brake and ship you a new brake FOC) is 2 years, you are beyond that now…

see the post above mine (bikeneil) for best advice

nooooo don’t bin them. I’ve rescured more than one set of Elixirs (including *those* ones) with a rebuild kit, for example see here.

Very easy to fit, then bleed the brake and they’re like new.

@jimmy

you can get lucky and get one of the “good sets” but these were rare among 100s of set of duff brakes

basically the fault was related to a design issue in the master cylinder inside the brake lever, and also the material used for the master cylinder diaphragm which would soon develop pin-hole leaks due to an aggressive reaction with DOT brake fluid

for mid 2012 onwards they redesigned the MC and started using Nalgene for the MC Diaphragm, which pretty much cured the problem

I have a set of 2010 elixir 5 and they have been no problem at all. I learned how to bleed them properly and they engage very early in the lever stroke except when the pads are almost worn out.

Thanks guys. Although the brake seems solid enough when it bites I’ll try a bleed.