Rear Brake Mushy and Weak

[fjmartin]

I noticed after my moto camping weekend that on the way home my rear brake pedal was moving it's full stroke and bottoming out and the brake was really weak. Today I pulled the brake pads off and they were JUST at the point of needing to be replaced...could just barely see the wear line on each pad. I replaced the pads but still had the mushy weak brake. So then I bled the brake...a LOT to make sure I had all the air our of the line and all new fluid in there. Still the same. Then I noticed that there was a pretty good size gap from the pad to the rotor on the inside pad. I tried pulling on the floating brake to move it over but it wouldn't move. Investigating I found that there are two bolts that hold the caliper unit onto the brake mount. These two bolts are also used for the "float". The forward bolt (toward the front of the bike) floats inside a sleeve but it was really really sticky. I spent a bunch of time cleaning out the sleeve and the bolt and put a little grease on it and now I was able to center it and then the pedal started moving the correct stroke and the brake is nice and strong again. Just an FYI for y'all in case you run into this type of issue. Take care!