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    Cantilever assembly

    Dear mechanics,

    i am slowly losing my mind, trying to rebuild my cantis.

    the right arm is pulling towards the wrong side. i have used all available springs and turned them upside down, but its physically impossible. do i need the square-ish silver parts? i dont understand how they work, but they were part of the brakes before.

    since the two ends of the springs are on opposite sides, and the opening on the brake arm is at the bottom, there is now way the arm will ever pull the right way.

    also where would i put the 2 black washers? at this point im not even sure if they were built in before.

    by meetmypyro

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    5 Comments

    2. WibberNZ on

      Jesus, I haven’t installed a set of these since the 90’s. Don’t quote me on it but from my fallible memory they have adjustable tension, you move the arm out to a position to provide the right tension before tightening the bolt down, the pressure of which locks the base in place. I don’t think you have to use the spring anchor on the fork. The washer was used when the post was longer than the bushing assembly. I ran a set on my ‘downhill’ hardtail in early high school and took the pads out so I could set the tension as high as possible for the skid-switch effect (with kool-stops).

    3. Nervous-Rush-4465 on

      The springs naturally should pull the caliper arms inward. The rectangular pieces are for preloading the springs away from the rim. You need to assemble the springs and use the rectangle to twist the spring outward. Use the center mounting bolt to hold the parts in place.

    4. rivalpinkbunny on

      tension nut> sleeve> spring>spring cover> caliper>washer> bolt 

      (My only doubt is the position of the washer, but it’ll work in that position)

      They’re a bitch to setup, so watch a video – a set of cone wrenches helps tremendously, but isn’t necessary.

      If you choose to go a different route, DIA Compe makes great cantis for cross bikes that are very nearly plug and play.

      Edit to add: I learned how to setup cantis with these brakes and once you can setup these, everything else is a breeze, so it’s worthwhile to figure it out.

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