Caliper anti-rattle spring preventing pad motion?

Hi all,

New here and to the world of motorcycles in general so pardon any nonsensical questions.

I recently bought an '83 Maxim XJ750 and I've been in the process of redoing my front brake system (stainless lines and full caliper rebuilds courtesy of Len!) and have hit a strange snag at the end of my caliper rebuild... It seems that the anti rattle springs (part 8-16) in the attached diagram prevent my new pads from sitting properly. The center "channel" of the spring doesn't quite line up on center with the holes for the pad pin, meaning the pads have to be *really* wedged in to fit and consequently don't easily slide along the pin even when greased, pin is VERY difficult to screw in, etc..



The pin fits the new pads fine, and I even tried using one of the old pads to rule anything out despite them matching up fine with the new pads size-wise, and weirdly the old pads have the same problem. If I leave the spring out, everything fits perfectly and the only thing is the pads have a slight wiggle to them up and down but can otherwise slide easily along the pin.

Anyone run into this before? Feel like I'm going crazy and can't figure out how things were working before.

 

Are the springs interchangeable between calipers? Did you dismantle both, could shims be mixed up?

 

Unfortunately no, springs are identical so same result using either.

 

That is what I thought. The anti rattle spring has to go to the right say 3mm, strange how it is not lining up.

 

Exactly right... When I tore down the calipers originally, things were definitely in there tight and I had to work a bit to get the pad pin and pads out. But upon reassembling and trying to look up other threads on here, I've read varied things ranging from someone saying they had to work a bit to get the new pads in, to someone saying the pads should slide freely on the pin and move easily by hand.

I believe I've also seen mixed opinion on running the calipers without the spring, which seems like it may be fine to do because there's pretty minimal "rattle" to the pads and probably less once the system is bled. If possible though I'd like to stick to the factory design as much as possible, if not only for peace of mind since this is the first time I'm doing a caliper rebuild.

Unfortunately it's a very specific part with these bikes, so searching for an answer across here as well as other bike forums is so far not turning up much and I haven't found someone with the same situation as me haha

 

Here is a service manual. It might help you get an answer.


https://www.xjcd.org/book/export/html/1379

@Jetfixer runs 750 Secas he should know.