Dear Tim, If they're squealing now after 100mi, and a short shot with a flat file on the pads to get a fresh surface + an alcohol wipe of the rim doesn't fix it, then no: The front brake will not stop squealing until it wears in the slop in the pivot bushing. And they are very, very loud.
This won't take long, actually, as squeal (which is high-frequency brake shudder) wears pads dramatically. I can remember braking down one steep hill before I toed in a set of MAFAC competitions (which have more play in the pivots than the Compass Brakes typically do), and watching/smelling material fly off off the pad. My ears rang after that particular braking experience, and I took a crescent wrench to the arms to cold-set enough toe-in to offset the play shortly thereafter. They've been silent since. Take a deep breath, grab a round file of the correct diameter (I think it is 1/4"), and file the washer with two indents in it to set the leading (TOE) edge of the brake in contact with the rim before the trailing edge. The amount you'll need to file will depend on how much angular play there is in the pivot, but the Compass pivots are pretty carefully matched to the brake bushings, and it shouldn't be much if the pivots are brazed accurately. The objective is to get the pad to contact the rim parallel under hard braking, when the rotation of the rim tends to take up the angular play in the bushing and press the heel of the pad into the rim before the toe. Start by setting the toe-in to a dime's width (put the dime under the heel of the pad, and file the inner contact point of the washer until the pad toe contacts the rim; alternatively, just use a crescent wrench to carefully cold-set (bend) the lower arm to achieve the necessary toe-in. Good luck. My Compass brakes have been silent for a year now, and I haven't had to tinker with toe-in etc, but I am not using the lovely Compass pad holders nor their brake pads, as they were not supplied to me--they were out of stock, apparently. My MAFACs have all had a lot of play, and have required pretty heavy toe-in (with the exception of the Alex Singer, which was consistently silent) to prevent squeal and excessive pad wear. Braze-on pivots are a big step up, assuming they're very straight and placed properly. Best Regards, Will William M. deRosset Fort Collins, CO On Tuesday, April 5, 2016 at 5:27:47 PM UTC-6, Tim wrote: > > Not to hijack the thread but...I just got my custom MAP with Compass > centerpulls and I have a question. Will the front break stop squealing like > a banshee after they break in a bit?!?!? I'm using them with HED Belgium > 650b rims (brand new). I've only been riding it about a week. Probably > around 100 miles. With light pressure there is no noise but with moderate > to hard pressure they squeal so loud that they turn heads. It's been like > that from the get go. It really kind of sucks. Any ideas? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
