Originally Posted by Wilfred Laurier

V brakes (and mini Vs) have two washer thicknesses to chose between, and by the looks of your rear brake, you chose the thick ones when the thin ones would be better.

There are two types of washers on V brakes - convex washers that are meant to go against the brake arm, and concave washers, one thick and one thin for each arm, that go over the 'ball' formed by the convex washers.


The improved order of washers on your rear brakes, starting from the brake pad are:

thin concave washer > convex washer > brake arm > convex washer > thick concave washer > small flat washer (usually) > nut.

With practice, setting up V brake type brakes should take about 5 minutes. They were the absolute easiest brakes to set up ever invented.