Dragging Brake Pad
 

Schwinn Avenue Hybrid with V pull brakes and the rear caliper is driving e nuts, the pad on the arm with pinch bolt keeps dragging, I have loosened 5MM pinch bolt, and allowed arms to open fully, then squeezed arms together to just shy of rim and tightened the 5MM bolt and it looks good, however I go for a ride, brake once and the pad on the 5MM bolt side is again dragging. As we say down South, I need HEP!

Most V-brakes have a small return spring tensioning bolt at the base of each arm. Tighten it on the dragging side and loosen it on the open side to balance the brake arms.

After using all adjustments I could think of I went to Occam's Razor and lubricated the pivot points on the brake caliper arms and Voila, the arms sprung away and all is now well. am getting older but no wiser.

Well that did not go well, I can loosen cable, push calipers together and retighten the bolt and all is well until I brake and then one of the arms does not spring back so I am guessing that I need to tighten the spring tension )spring on back of caliper arm) do I do both or just the one that is not springing back?

What do you mean -- no wiser? You can add "step one- lube pivots, before balancing" to your accumulated body of knowledge.

Straight return springs. can be bent to increase their force.

On cheap V-brakes, sometimes the base of the spring doesn't go into the brake boss, but into a plastic collar with a little peg that goes into the boss. If you have this kind, you might be screwed.

Take the arms off and give them a clean and figure them out; they're pretty basic. You'll prolly see three holes for the spring in the brake boss, which should help. If all else fails, just tweak the spring.

Or start by tweaking the spring, if you're lazy.

Check your cable routing also, V-brakes tend to get a lot of friction when going around tight loops and don't releasing well because of the cable friction. Had to figure that out after 6 months of screwing around with spring tensions and even swapping brakes.

99% of the time this fixes the problem for me. I adjust 40 rental bikes a week with cheap V-brakes and they have to be perfect or else.

Or if you're in a hurry

Start by removing the brake arms and inspecting and/or cleaning the pivots. If lubing made a substantial difference, there is too much friction likely for some reason other than not enough oil.

I've also had the experience of a brake boss being a little too big and having to grind it down with emery cloth.

WAIT! VABEAR! Before you try to adjust your brakes or fix anything, make sure your wheel is fully seated int he dropouts. I would guess this the cause of 90% of calls to LBSs complaining about off-centre brakes or dragging pads.