Avid Shorty Ultimate spring cap spinning

[Mustangski]

Hello,
I recently picked up a Ritchey Breakaway Cross, since I do a lot of traveling and felt like I was missing out on some great opportunities.

Anyway,
I pieced the majority of the bike together from stripping my Cannondale CAADX and the parts bin with exception to new Avid Shorty Ultimates. I am completely unfamiliar with canti brakes, but they were super easy to install/adjust except for the front right. After I tensioned the spring cap with a 15mm wrench and torqued the brake bolt the arm seemed to be sticking. When I pulled out on it the spring popped from the cap spinning and losing tension.

I googled and searched here finding the issue with a brake stud being too short, which mine is not and all the other three worked fine. The back of the spring cap is severely gouged and the spring lost some shape.

I put a small washer behind the spring cap and it is holding now, however I believe the spring lost some tension and it still feels like it is binding slightly and not completely returning smoothly like all the others. I already ordered the replacement spring and spring cap, hope to get them installed before my first trial flying with the Breakaway on a trip to Guam in the next two weeks.

Any thoughts on how this could happen? Ever seen this before?
Thanks.

Jeff

[Mustangski]

Another pic of the spring installed.

[Cat3roadracer]

My friend, you now get to benefit from the week it took me to figure this out. The post you are threading into is too short. Unscrew your post and precisely measure. Then go to the Paragon Machine Works web site and get two posts that are longer. For my Moots there are only two options, so it was the other size that worked. The SRAM technical line is helpful as well.

Let us know how you make out.

[quickfeet]

I would probably replace the springs on the front too, that one looks like it was installed on the wrong brake at some point in its life... (sadly that is something I have done myself)

[homagesilkhope]

Yes, I've been there, too. The brake mounting post/stud needs to stand proud of the end of the brake arm "barrel" just a hair in order to prevent the whole series from binding when bolted down. Paragon's BK2014 is likely your fix.

[Mustangski]

Thanks for all of the replies, the brake stud is about 1mm longer than the barrel. When I started having issues I found the issue with the shorter stud. It just seemed odd because it was only on one side. Once the cap spun the first time it won't hold again unless I put a washer behind the spring cap.

I will take a picture of it once I receive the replacement spring parts. Is 1mm not enough space? How much longer should it be?


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[Mustangski]

I just wanted to follow up on this in case anyone else has the same issue. The original Ritchey brake studs were long enough so that wasn't the issue. After receiving the new spring I was installing the brakes according to the installation instructions per Avid and the spring cap spun again. A buddy suggested he thinks the spring is under too much tension, Avid states to place the small circle at the 3 and 9 position. I adjusted the tension as shown below in the pics.

We just completed 64 miles around the southern tip of Guam and the brakes were perfect, tension was good and easy lever pull. The rear needed more tension than the front, not sure why.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180513/84b3fd50be7328f502a9f7d578414fca.jpg

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180513/dc47d7346a8a4f71b212e5bd02d86bec.jpg


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[Mustangski]

Just realized the pads look all jacked up in the photo, they are properly aligned I just don't know how to take a photo...


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