MTB Brake Pads Replacement - Avid Elixir 1

[louiebaby]

Afternoon all, looking for a bit of advice really...

I'm normally a roadie, but have a MTB for commuting (road based, but mucky country lanes) and child delivery duties. The pads are (I strongly suspect) knackered, after a good bit of use and abuse.

With my regular use being mainly (fastish) mucky country road commuting, and occasionally thrashing round the green and blue Forestry Commission trails with the kid on the back, what should I replace them with?

In terms of how to do it, is this the right procedure?

• Nip split pin together, pull out and remove pads, retain their little springy holder.
• Remove wheel and clean the disc with meths to get it free of oil and crap.
• Clean everything else whilst I'm at it.
• (I think I need to wind back the pistons here, do I just carefully use a flat screwdriver to push them apart?)
• Wheel back in, new pads in the carrier back in, pin back in, and re-split the pin.
• (I think I need to adjust a bit here, any tips?)

Many thanks in advance for a bit of useful knowledge.

[deadtom]

pretty much spot on, however you will find the pad removal and re fitting process is vastly simplified by doing it with the wheel off the bike, ie the first and last things you should do are remove and refit the wheel respectively.

If you are lucky you won't even need to re adjust anything afterward

[matt-ITR]

The only extra thing I would add is that you might need to re-aligned the caliper.

Do all the above, then if the rotor is rubbing the pads loosen the caliper bolts, hold the brake on and tighten back up.
If that doesn't work you might have a sticky piston, which is common in Elixrs.

[Justin S]

A few changes from me. If the pads are knackered they will go in the bin. Never lever a piston back in with a screwdriver. It will score and damage them. You can buy a tool from Chain Reaction for a tenner, if you do it regulary, otherwise lever the old pads in the caliper.
As said Avids can suffer sticky pistons, so remove the wheel, remove the pads. Clean the proud pistons. Then use some dry lube on the proud pistons. Then refit the old pads and push pistons back in. Then pump the lever to exercise in and out a few times. Remove and bin the pads. Clean out the caliper and refit with new pads. If you are riding in muddy places then consider sintered pads from Uberbike or Superstar as organics wont last this time of year.

[Mr Gearchange]

You will also then need to bed in the new pads to get the pad compound onto the disk.
Do 4 or 5 good hard stops from a decent speed but without locking the wheels. Then squirt a bit of water over the disk and calliper. Then do another stop.

Please note that when you do this final stop the brakes will be a damn sight more effective than they were on the previous bedding in stops - be careful not to go OTB.

[jshell]

My procedure for replacing Avid pads:

1. Mount bike on service stand
2. Drop wheels off
3. Rip off all of that Avid rubbish, particularly exploded caliper
4. Replace with CRC sourced cheap Shimano XT
5. Put wheels on
6. Set pad space and centre calipers
7. Enjoy powerful, non-squealing, reliable brakes
8. Have self-congratulatory beer


Only said half tongue-in-cheek...

[louiebaby]

Thank you to everyone, some very useful tips. (Particularly the exercising of the pistons, and bedding in technique.)

WRT changing to XT, budget constraints mean I can't do this at the moment, but I will keep this in mind. Luckily my commute only really has two points where I need to slow or stop, so I can cope with them being a bit squeaky. They need to work though!

[Matt106]

I also sand down the discs with a light grade paper and then wipe down with disc cleaner, worth covering all bases whilst your at it!

[jshell]

louiebaby said:

Thank you to everyone, some very useful tips. (Particularly the exercising of the pistons, and bedding in technique.)

WRT changing to XT, budget constraints mean I can't do this at the moment, but I will keep this in mind. Luckily my commute only really has two points where I need to slow or stop, so I can cope with them being a bit squeaky. They need to work though!

I was in same position, but I couldn't take them any more. When a caliper exploded, that was the final straw for me. I did find it was the disc that caused the gawd-awful squealing though...

[ecsrobin]

My elixir 1's appear to be corroding at a very fast rate on the calipers and the levers. When the summer comes it will be XT for me.

[louiebaby]

Thanks for all the help chaps.

I had to let a bit of fluid out to get the rear pistons to go back in. (They were happily going back and forth with the same gap, so letting a bit out seemed to help.)

The front seems to have developed a small leak at the lever, so I might have to upgrade sooner than I thought.

The old pads were properly shagged though. I won't leave it as long in the future.

[BadgerBenji]

That's not an uncommon fault, the master cylinder is not the most reliable. Time to change, you can get the parts but it's not worth it.