WGB 

This one is bizarre. It seems as if the left side caliper (as mounted and closest to camera) was miscast. There isn't any obvious sign of trauma to the brake body which would suggest it was previously bent in a collision or something else.

I got a Fuji Espree for a winter bike. I stripped it completely and scrubbed the frame and parts and am now rebuilding. I put the brake pads on the rear brake and wow are they ever misaligned! I installed the brake to double check. Pulled the rear brake and the brake stuck and then the spring popped off.

These are Dia Compe N500 brakes. General workhorse brakes found on low end to lower mid range bikes but normally they do work.

Here is what I have.

Top view - as you can see the pads are offset and not in line





Is it just me or is the left side (as mounted) caliper "off"?





I know bending aluminum is generally a bad idea but could this have already been bent or was it miss cast and just overlooked at the factory?

If I can somehow get the spring to stay on would there be any issues with having off-set brake pads??

cyccommute 

You might be able to bend it but that’s a lot of bending for aluminum. And it’s at a place where the metal is already stressed. As someone I used to work with said, “force it. It’s already broken.” Maybe you’ll get lucky.

On the other hand, these brakes aren’t much to write home about and are easily replaced.

WGB 

cyccommute
PO had trouble with rear brake from day one (appears it was either bent or whatever?? as bought) so PO rode without a rear brake. I'm a fan of two brakes not one so I won't ride like that.

Still have to wax before installing all parts but, even though pads are offset, if both pads still hit rim at same time do you think it will work as a "normal" brake?

Or do you foresee it pulling to one side??

I agree these aren't expensive to replace but don't have any other cheap brakes to replace it with at my house and can't get in a co-op for a bit.

cyccommute 

I doubt that it would pull to one side or the other. Lining up the pads might be difficult but given the age of the brakes, someone may have already dealt with that problem.

Bill Kapaun

IF it were a front brake, I'd say no way.
If a rear, you tend not to stress them so much and it may be good enough.
You might give it a couple "gorilla squeezes" on the handle to see if it yields.

Andrew R Stewart 

I'd leave it as is unless the pad can't be set WRT the rim. Like Stuart said that's a lot of bending to be done and the arm has already been bent at least twice, once when made and once when deformed (and it's very doubtful it left the factory this way). Andy

Jeff Wills

I would guess it was damaged in a fall or in a bike rack "accident".

BITD we would twist those arms one way or another to toe-in the brake pads. The aluminum is pretty easy to tweak. But like Andy said, I'd leave it as is unless you can't align the brake pad with the rim or if the toe-in is too far off.

WGB 

I had to stop playing with bikes and entertain my wife. I'll finish tomorrow morning and report back how it works.
Puzzles me that it could have been damaged by a fall as finish on brake calipers is quite good with no sign of external damage and I'd never have thought an aluminum caliper could twist that much without snapping. I also have a hard time believing Dia Compe quality control would've missed that big a bend but I had a bike with one fork that was only half brazed in so anything is possible.

Trakhak

The first photo shows that the portion of the anchor bolt that secures the brake wire is precisely where you'd want it to be---it's directly in line with the cable housing stop in the supposedly bent brake arm.

Thus, unless you're all seeing something that I'm not seeing, and factoring in the previous comments acknowledging how unlikely it is that damage or miscasting was involved, it looks as if the bend in the arm is intentional, i.e., represents a (reasonable) design decision.

But I imagine that the discussion will continue regardless.

Mad Honk 

Wes,
The inner arm of the brake is damaged and would work far better if replaced. How, or why, is kinda irrelevant at this point. There are bunches of those brake sets out in the wild, and finding one for replacement parts should be easy. The damaged inner arm will likely fail at some time if you bend it back to the normal position. Just my thoughts, smiles, MH

Andrew R Stewart 

MH- I have to take issue with " would work far better if replaced". Excepting the change to max pad reach on that side of the caliper the function of this arm is the same as it was prior to the incident. I have broken a few caliper arms (including from the opposing ends of the failure spectrum, Berilla and Campy) as well as touched many thousands of brakes from every brand you can think of.

The classic bent caliper is the front whose cable stop arm extension has contacted the down tube and been bent forward. In the extreme that arm rocks/bends about the center bolt and/or the bolt bends too. These are fairly easy to straighten either with an adjustable wrench or a hammer. Center bolts are clamped in a vise and a punch and hammer do a good job at straightening the bolt. Of the many calipers I have straightened very few failed, like count on one hand few. Still I would not try correcting the imaged type of bend unless it prevented the brake function, which I doubt it will.

I suspect the caliper you have was run into a door frame or some such iten that just cleared the ft wheel. Note that the pads are likely not OEM. I don't remember these calipers coming with pad shoes with both the extra "schwinn like" anti pad slide out backwards shoe layer as well as the tire guides on the pad shoes. Even the pad's "dots" don't look to be of the era that these brakes generally came from. I stronglt suspect the pads have been replaced after the arm was bent. Andy

Mad Honk 

Ok Andy,
Would you prefer to ride that brake caliper after being bent or replacing the inner arm and riding it as designed to work correctly? JMHO, smiles, MH