Avid Shorty Cantiliver Brakes: How I fixed the squal

[JWestland]

Hi all -

I guess if you are familiar with Canti's this could be news from "The institute of Studies" or "The institute of the blindingly obvious" but I never had them. So...

Avid Short 6 on my XTC (from e-bay, comfy steed and aside from the massive turning circle I love it)
Back one: OK
Front one: Squeals like mad!

Changed pads to Salmon Coolstop, which increased performance but didn't stop the SQUEAAAAAAAAL. Very handy in way, better than a cycle bell. But I digress...

So last night I had a look at the pads. It turned out that one pad was sitting out much further from the wheel than the other, even though the vertical alignment was nearly identical.

So out with the screwdriver. I ensured the vertical alignment and pad angle was identical, measured from the insert point for the pads on the hangar.

I then used a tiny allen key to measure the distance to the rim, set one pad to the distance and the other one to the same distance, using the alignment screws on the side of the brake.

And voila, silencio!

Now this might be totally obvious, but it's very hard to see if the pads are evenly far from the tire by eye, so using a small tool to measure might help if you changed pads and still have a persistent squeal.

[Danneaux]

A wonderful bit of detective work there, Jawine, and a hearty "well-done" from me!

So many sources of clicks, squeals, snaps and pops in bicycles are not immediately obvious. Lubrication does wonders, and lack of it the same, but in a bad way. Such a little difference in actual measure, but this goes to show...sometimes "little" means "a lot" in results.

Nicely done, Jawine; thanks for sharing! Sometime, someone will see your post and say, "Hmm! She did me a good turn in posting that; saved me an hour on finding that annoying squeal"...and then curse you for having to buy a bell! 

All the best,

Dan.