Evening all, First fost here and first dilemma.

Out a few weeks ago and my rear Elixir R started dragging really badly, bad enough for me to pop the pads out and finish the ride minus the rear brake.
I re bled the brake and it made no difference. Fast forward a few weeks and i’ve (finally) stripped the caliper and lever and replaced all the internals.
The problem is, now the brake has been reassembled and bled up it still drags.
Prior to the ride a few weeks ago the brake was running well.

Does anyone have any suggestions (excluding the buy another brand).

Cheers

Jamie

Give it to this wee chap. 😉

Avids are a bit fiddly to set up and the “tri-align” washer system is a faff but, with time, you can usually get the to run silent – loosen the bolts, wiggle everything around, pull the brake lever a few times then hold on & carefully tighten the bolts up again. It can take a few attempts.

Having said that, they do run close to the rotors so aren’t very tolerant of warped discs.

My Elixirs don’t drag, but I do hear a bit of rub if the rotors get muddy due to the pads retracting a bit less than other brands of brakes.

New pads? Sand the backs.

I have avids on two bikes but I wish I had the money to change them both. My shimano brakes were so much more user friendly.

buy another brand

Is exactly what I would do…

You’ve got a sticky piston if you ask me.

Fixing it is easy but is going to result in a full bleed.

Wheel out, tub under caliper, pull lever and catch piston.

Carefully clean piston body and bore with IPA or brake cleaner. Use a lint free cloth. Give the piston a quick blast of Fork Juice aiming for the rubber seal ring around the edge.

Reseat piston, reassemble pads and do whatever you do with blocks and bleed properly.

Should be fixed.

Brake fluid is *not* a lubricant for seals regardless of what car mechanics will say – it eats them eventually.

This worked for me. I have Elixir R’s on several bikes and I love them. They just need bleeding properly.

Thanks for the replies, when I stripped it down i replaced everything, new seal kit and new pistons. The piston seals and pistons were lightly greased with DOT grease.

When it originally happened the brake had been running fine for months then for the first 2 hours of a ride then it just stopped retracting. That’s when I splashed out on a whole service kit.

I’ve talked the issue through with 2 bike mechanics who are both scratching their heads.

I’ve bled my juicys and elixirs many times over the years so i have the whole process down to a T.

Buying a new brake would be the easy bit, if nothing else i’d like to justify the service kits (even if it was just to ebay it as a working system:D).

Cheers again

Jamie

Just to check, when you bled and rebuilt the brake did you set the pads spacing using the thinner side of the red bleed block?

Have you tried new pads (or swapping with the front) and a different rotor?

aftermarket pads? sometimes they arnt as smooth in the caliper, try a file on the edges etc.

Also did you wind the lever reach right back to the bar before bleeding? thats pretty key I found when bleeding Avids. Pistons all way back, pads out, lever reach right back to the bar and push pull with the syringed should do it. Providing you’re using the right fluid etc.

Uberbike pads but they had being used in the brake. I’ve got a fair few folk stumped. Thanks for all the help. Another bleed sorted nothing.