[Closed] SRAM Guide R brake

I've seen cheaper, but there are very few moving parts in the caliper - they're easy to open up and service. You might get away with re-using the seals, although a replacement service pack is cheap enough. Just be sure to pump the pistons out as far as they go before cracking the body open as they can get stuck and without hydraulic pressure, you'll have no force to get them out. Full SRAM brake service guide here. Honestly, a full service is no more difficult than doing a bleed.

How’s about trying a Piston release tool first, on your old caliper?

£81 for a single guide r brake doesn’t sound particularly good value tbh.

There’s a Guide RE here for £77 ish which has a much stronger caliper (same lever).

https://www.starbike.com/en/sram-guide-re-disc-brake/?currency=GBP&keep_params&gclid=CjwKCAjw2uf2BRBpEiwA31VZj2bkBUZwCxAhDV9Bf6LhCMIp4Ve3E1DJcO9jz-IUCX5XyUSLGY7qyRoC4kMQAvD_BwE#

Personally I’d also look on eBay to see what you can find. Guide R / Guide RE / Code R are fitted to a lot of bikes as oem brakes but people regularly remove them almost straight away and replace with Hope or (if they have a penchant for them) Shimano.

Over the last few years I’ve picked up Guide R’s / Guide RE / Code R for not a lot of money. Think the Guide R’s I got a pair for just under £80 with a Sram Pro bleed kit included. Guide RE was £50 for the rear. £100 for a pair of Codes etc.

CHeper here - https://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/sram-guide-r-disc-brake-rear-960527

I've got guides on my new bike, based on reviews I'd be inclined to swap to The Guide RE (the old CODE) caliper. You could swap the old front caliper to the back and put the RE up front.

Or left field suggestion, Hope have close enough piston diameters, just buy an E4 or V4 Caliper depending on how much more power you want. I've seen them on ebay for £59 new if you don't mind unpopular colours.

Guide 14/13
Code 16/15
E4 16/14
V4 16/16

Just be sure to pump the pistons out as far as they go before cracking the body open as they can get stuck and without hydraulic pressure,

Stick an air line on them. Works for cars. Although with cars you're no supposed to split the caliper, clamp one side in with a bit of bent metal, blow one side out, replace piston/seals, swap clamp over and repeat. Relies on the pistons being shorter than the gap in the caliper though.

Wrap the caliper in a rag first and point downwards, towards bench, or you'll get a facefull of brake fluid and piston. And keep your fingers out of the way.

Mine are the old single pot brakes. Will all of the options posted here fit my frame/discs etc?

Guides aren’t single pot - even the mk1 guides are 4 pot

I can confirm that if you want great brakes for cheap, used Sram stuff is a stupidly good option.

A lot of people change the Sram OEM brakes directly on their new bikes. You have tons of insanely cheap new / close to new brakes that are great.

Got my Codes R at 100€ shipped. Nearly got all new Codes RSC with discs at 190.

The new Guide R has the S4 4-piston dual-diameter caliper. We took a new set off a bike we bought to fit Saints. Sold them both on Pinkbike yesterday for £110 within a few minutes of advertising.

New Levo SL will be picked up next week and after swapping quite a lot of stuff around the Guide Rs will be sold on and REs fitted.

Don't know what the difference between the old and the new but never got on with the old Guides

If by seized caliper you mean sticky pistons, then it might just need a bit of simple maintenance.
Take out the pads and advance the pistons 5mm or so with the brake lever (don't go too far). Scrub with a degreaser using a toothbrush or similar and get it nice and clean. Allow to dry and apply silicon grease with a cotton bud around the edges of the pistons. Push them back in and cycle in and out a few times using the lever. Do this until the pistons all advance at the same rate i.e. not sticking. Clean up any misplaced grease and pop the pads back in.
Worked a treat for my Guide R

I think I may have “gone too far” with 2 of the pistons. They all moved out at a different rate, one not at all. Can’t seem to get them all back in evenly now, and definitely can’t get pads in. Poor fettling on my behalf, I’m afraid.

5 years old means they are likely the same version as mine are. I swapped all the caliper pistons and seals after having the same issue. It didn't help. Turned out it was the lever piston. That model has plastic ones which warp eventually so don't move back and forth freely.

After changing the lever pistons to new metal ones (make sure you get the right length ones for the R (the long ones I think) and the right kind of pliers for the split washer clip thing!) the brakes were perfect.

My front Level TL did something similar the other day. Only one piston was moving, so blocked one side off and forced the other out with the lever.

Got it unstuck, but one of the pistons lost a bit of material (like a small shaving) and now it just goes back in uneven and sticks.

Ended up swapping the front for a spare Guide RS I have. Now I've gone all Magura style with 2 pot on the back, 4 pot on the front! 🙂

This looks like the route that may be best for me. More hours of incompetent fettling are just not an option.
I’d like to just remove the old Caliper, and replace with new one, keeping lever etc for spares.
I have bleed kit, and have bled droppers before, so should be OK.
Any good known instruction vids for muppets?

If you can find one with the same fitting then it's not a long job to swap over. Loads of YouTube stuff on bleeding.
I took delivery yesterday of a new bike, once I've swapped over the brakes I will have another new set of Guide Rs that will be going up for sale at £110 posted

Ah Tracey, are we saying some Guide Rs have different fittings?

The earlier ones that we have had from a few years ago were different to the latest S4 calipers we have had.
If you could post up a photo of your existing caliper with a good view of the fitting it would be easier for someone to confirm.
Even the latest REs have a different fitting to the rest

Is this any good?

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[url= https://postimages.org/ ]pichost[/url]

I had the lever piston sticking issue on my Guide R.
Picked up an as new brake for £45. The early guides had the dodgy lever pistons which swell when hot.
Still have the old one as a spare and have the piston rebuild kit with the revised piston to fix it should I have the time and inclination.

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It looks like the latest banjo fitting to me. This is what the latest banjo look like, if you zoom in

[img] [/img]

Thanks Tracey .... so, does this look ok?
https://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/sram-guide-r-disc-brake-rear-960527

https://epicbleedsolutions.com/blogs/faq/what-is-sram-bleeding-edge-tool

The plot thickens “jsync”

It would appear that mine are the old style and the one from bike discount (link above)

So, anyone know if I can I fit the new new Caliper to the old mounts/tubing etc?

Is there some specific reason why you need to keep the same brakes? I'd do what others suggested and just get a set of guides, or guide RE, or Codes that someone has taken off a new bike to put more bling brakes on. The new bleed adapter is only £5-£10 depending on where you get it from.

All that will happen is the old one will sit in your toolbox for 5 years, dripping DOT fluid on everything and eventually get binned in 5 years time when you decide to upgrade to something else as all the compatible spare pads, mounts etc are contaminated with brake fluid or have the paint bubbling off them.

My new bike came with Guide R brakes, TBH they're not the strongest, can't say if they're weaker than the Shimano 2-piston brakes on my last bike, but I definitely prefered the Shimano lever feel. Some reviews say they guides have more modulation than the shimano, but I think that's just confusing lever travel with modulation. Modulation is how easy it is to vary between some and lots of braking, lever travel is just how squishy it all feels. Ride a motorbike for comparison and the lever feels almost rigid (because the pad clearance is less and the seals don't move), but there's still loads of modulation.

I've just ordered a compatible rotor for the shimano brakes so I can swap them and test them back to back and see. But I suspect I'll sell the Guides.

This is what I intended to do, and still hopefully do, buy buying similar to the brake advertised in the above link.

I just can’t find any info stating that I can: remove old Caliper and fit new style (S4?) without any further modifications.

ie just swap new for old

I just can’t find any info stating that I can: remove old Caliper and fit new style (S4?) without any further modifications.

ie just swap new for old

With some degree of faffing, you can swap any DOT fluid caliper from any brand onto them and it will probably work. Whenever I've had hose kits they only seem to come with one banjo fitting which would imply that all bakes are using the same size. Plenty of people run Code calipers on guide brakes for example as they have bigger pistons and therefore more force.

The "new" Guide hose has a crimped on banjo, whereas the old one was held on with a compression fitting and olive. But that doesn't affect the caliper.

But if you're buying a new brake anyway, it doesn't matter because it comes with a lever and hose. Might need a new barb and olive if you need to route it internally but that's easy to do, the SRAM ones are threaded so you just screw them into the end of the hose with a small alen key.

Really didn’t want to go that far, I just want to replace the old Caliper with a new one, and it sounds, by what you’re saying, as if that should all be ok.

Took Caliper off, pumping a little first, and no way will the pistons come out for cleaning, so it’s new Caliper time I think.

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If you've gone to that much effort I'd persevere and finish the job.

https://www.deporvillage.net/replacement-piston-sram-brake-caliper-guide-r-rs-rsc?

I'm sure one way or another those pistons will come out.

Yes I’d tentatively explored that option, and You know what I think I just might.

The pistons are plastic so you could probably drill a pilot hole then put a screw in them to give you something to pull them out. If you blunt the end of the screw you could just keep screwing against the calliper so it pushes the piston out.

Great tip 👍

Well, I only went and did it😱. Bought the kit; drilled the hole; filed the screw; removed old, fitted new pistons/seals; bled system, and bingo; one rideable fatbike.

For one normally guilty of “fettling muppetry” of a high order, I’m pretty chuffed with myself today. Hopefully no, lever to the bars whilst slithering down a hillside, instigated death will happen first ride.

Thanks everyone for your tips and advice.

Ha, glad it worked 👍

By random bad luck my front brake pulled to the bar mid ride on Sunday, hopefully it's just an air bubble in the master cylinder, I only bled them last week so must have cocked it up. Id only gone out to ride up and the biggest/steepest hill I could think of to bed them in properly!