Juicy 3's pads rubbing

I put a thin layer of grease on the concave washers. Then, while the bolts are loose, rotate the wheel, stop it with the brakes and hold the lever. Tighten the bolts (alternate between the two as you tighten). I always tighten with a torque wrench to proper torque.

If you are still rubbing, look and see which pad is rubbing and stick a business card between that pad and the rotor, and repeat the process.

If that doesn't work, it could be that the gap between the pads is simply too narrow (pulled the brake lever without the rotor on, perhaps during shipping). Gently push the pistons back and repeat the first procedure.

Vmax is correct. The grease on the concave washers helps with keeping the caliper centered when tightening down.

But with the business card thing, the pads are self adjusting so even at first you have the spacing correct, after brake application, you could still in fact get some pad/rotor noise.

Its also possible that the rotor can get tweaked a little bit, even though the caliper is centered correctly. You can gently bend the rotor so that it doesn't rub.

I'm going to second frdfandc's advice of a bent rotor. Rotors rarely, if ever, come from the factory perfectly true. Spin the wheel and look carefully at where the rotor goes through the pads, if you can see the pad waving from side to side, then it's bent. You can gently adjust them by prying with an adjustable wrench. GENTLY! You can easily do more harm than good, so take your time or take it to a shop. But try the other adjustment suggestions first (opening the pads and re-adjusting).

I tried all the suggestions.

It looks like it's rubbing on the pads which are further from the cassette.

I'm not sure where I need to insert the screwdriver to push the piston back.

The rotor doesn't seem like it's waving from side to side. The gap between the pad and rotor is very small. Is there a way to enlarge the gap a little?

If you've pried the pistons back, then there is no way to increase the gap distance. Have you ridden it much yet? A lot of the time all you need is to get some good firm stops on the brakes to bed them in and they'll give you a bit more adjustment room.

zebrahum said:

If you've pried the pistons back, then there is no way to increase the gap distance. Have you ridden it much yet? A lot of the time all you need is to get some good firm stops on the brakes to bed them in and they'll give you a bit more adjustment room.

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Actually I forgot to push the pistons back manually. Do I need to take the wheel off or can it be done with them on?

Dictatorsaurus said:

Actually I forgot to push the pistons back manually. Do I need to take the wheel off or can it be done with them on?

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You need to take the wheel off. Pry them back gently from the center of the pad with something that won't scratch it. If you can't fit a tire lever in there, then wrap up a screwdriver with some tape or something. If you take the pads out, NEVER pry against the poles in the center of the pistons, they will break. With the pads out, using the box end of a 10mm wrench works well.

Problem solved!!!

I'm glad I got to do this since I better understand the mechanism.

Pushing the pistons back in helped a lot.

One little trick I discovered which completely solved the problem, I noticed for the rear rotor that it was rubbing at a certain spot over and over. So I stopped the wheel from spinning using the brake lever at EXACTLY the spot where the rotor was rubbing against the pad then tightened the bolts. Doing so made sure the caliper was dead center around the area where it was rubbing and hence no more rub anywhere.

Nice work, you're learning like a pro!