Cantilever brakes replacement

[FirstV8]

i recently bought my horticultural engineer a Axix Mtb to commute to work and home . I gave it a good once over readjusting gears brakes and regreasing all moving parts . The cantilever brakes have seen better days and are a bitch to adjust . They will one day not touch a rim edge and the next day it will drag on one side . I want to replace them with something more efficient and simpler do work on and adjust if needed. Any suggestions please . ( This is a poser for Robert Whitehead ) who i consider very well versed technical.   

[dasilvarsa]

You have to Adjust the Springs So that the 2 Arms are pulled Apart equally. (3 positions)

The Springs could be bent and require reshaping.

The Bushes need to cleaned and lubed.

It looks like from the pic that the springs are not Strong enough to pull the brake cable tight or the brake cable is out of adjustment.

Edited February 27, 2023 by dasilvarsa

[Max Headroom]

You can adjust them to work fine 90% of the time, but as mentioned above you need to keep the moving part, levers, pivot point, springs very clean and oiled so there is no sticky point in the movement. That includes your cable - looks like the cable has kinks in your pic. New cables and housings also important.

If you are not familiar with adjusting them, you can easily disassemble them to see how it works and is adjustable by screws and tention hooks for the springs.And you might have to bend the spring wires a little for better operation tension.

Pic is a bit vague but it looks like you have mounting posts on the fork-shock lower and on frame for hydraulique brakes . Pic is not goog enough to see if your hubs are disc-rotor compatible .

[JacBrand]

The brake pads have these swivel washers. If you look closely, you will see that they are different thicknesses. On my kids' bikes, I put the thicker washer set between the brake pad and cantilever post. This moves the posts outward.

[NC_lurker]

Those are v-brakes. You can adjust the pads using the little screw that applies leverage on the springs.

[NC_lurker]

Just out of interest, these are cantilever brakes & so far they're even worse to try fine tune 😆

[FirstV8]

3 hours ago, NC_lurker said:

Just out of interest, these are cantilever brakes & so far they're even worse to try fine tune 😆

Those center pull type are even worse to tune . Im an old school bikie back when center pull was all the rage and side pull was for supermarket special bikes . Im going to do a complete strip down and clean up on those brakes to see if they improve . 

[NC_lurker]

2 hours ago, FirstV8 said:

Those center pull type are even worse to tune . Im an old school bikie back when center pull was all the rage and side pull was for supermarket special bikes . Im going to do a complete strip down and clean up on those brakes to see if they improve . 

Yeah, things got so bad at one point trying to set them up that I almost had to resort to reading the manual 😆

(Or the modern equivalent.... YouTube it)