It's been bugging me ever since I've had the bike (not that long). The other day I took it all apart and cleaned and greased everything and they still seem biased to one side and even rub.

I think everything was done right, tightened up enough to not bind and regreased everything. At first I thought the arms were rubbing but I added another washer to space them out and they still don't center. I even hammered the spring a la Dave Moulton to try and center it but it nothing changes. Am I doing that right, bolt on the coil part of the spring and hammer right?

Can it be remedied with a new spring or new brakes altogether? I have a set of brakes off a cheaper bike that do center but would it make that much of a difference that I should try and fix these or is the performance/durability fairly negligible?

Thanks

Not sure if this will help your case or not but I solved my brake centering problem by adjusting slack or lack of slack in the cable housing. This helps align the position of the brakes when you engage then release the brake. If you have excess cable housing it will cause the alignment to be off to one side as not enough housing will pull the alignment to the other side.

You are talking about road side pull brakes? If so, and if Shimano, you have two options. For minor trim, turn the only screw on the calipers one way or the other. For a major trim, loosen the attachment bolt at the back of the fork or front of the seatstay bridge, grip the brakes tightly on with the lever, and then fasten the bolt.

The other spring option instead of hammering (which I have never had that much luck with) is to pull the weak side spring out (the one that rubs) and bend it further away from the caliper. Replace. This should balance out the spring action. It's always worked for me.

Since I end up doing it so often, I took an old flathead screwdriver and cut a notch in the blade with a dremel cutting wheel. Gives you a secure hold on the spring while you slip in/out from the tab on the caliper.

Thanks, my brakes have no provisions for adjustments so that's out.

Does the cable housing length matter that much? I would think the spring would overcome the negligible force of that.

I'll try bending the spring tellyho, that sounds like it might have more effect.