Cleaning lube of disc brake pads?? HELP!!!

MTBAU

Hi all,

Tonight i was putting some sewing machine oil on my forks to lubricate them a bit and then the bottle came undone and the lube went all over my forks and disc brakes.

So my disc brakes still stop kinda, but real ****ty!

So i took off the brake pads and washed them with dishwashing liquid, thought it would get off the grease and stuff and wiped the disc with a soapy sponge and rinsed it. Improved it slightly, but it is still ****ty as, won't lock up or give any decent stopping power!!

Help me out, how can a clean them well and get it back to new!?

Cheers,
Ken

MtnBikerChk

wipe the rotors and the pads with rubbing alcohol. The put the pads in the oven:

"But for this all you need to do is to pre-heat your oven to 450deg. (no this is not a baking lesson!! Haha),
Thoroughly clean the pads with something like alcohol, or disc doctor...
allow them to dry..(we wouldn't want a fire) and then place them face UP on a cookie sheet or like and let them bake for about 2hrs., then shut the oven off, and let them cool slowly (DO NOT dunk them to cool them!!)

What this does is allow any uncured resin to boil and burn away, and stabilizes the rest of the resins in the pad, it also allows any gas pockets in the puck to expand and fissure out of the pad, making the pad more uniform thru out.
There will probably be a smell reminiscent of burning oil so I don't think you will want to bake a cake right after, in fact you will want to air out the oven for a few hours after."

(from another board)

Randal Lovelace

Ken, try brake cleaner from an automotive store, won't damage the pads, or rotor.......I suggest spraying onto a rag and wiping as needed.

__________________
Randal Lovelace on Nishiki Sport

randalranman@wmconnect.com

Riding is like breathing, it's something you have to do.

bobby

Automotive Brake cleaner is not a vapour degreaser and will leave an oily deposit. Automotive disks are obviously subjected to significantly higher temperatures than on a pedaller hense this residue doesn't effect the braking efficiency.
My suggestion would be to replace the pads and use a non residue vapour degreaser such as MEK or Trichloroethane (but I think both of those are baned now) to clean the disk.
B

MTBAU

Hey all,

Thanks for the posts, i put them in the oven and that seemed to help a bit, but not for too long.

I went to the bike shop in my local town and they said if i spilled lube on it, it will most likely have seaped into the pads a bit, making them lubed always. But they said i should be able to file a small layer off and it should solve it.

They also recommended alcohol swabs for cleaning the discs, only cost 6.50 (aus) for 200 of the buggers!

When i cleaned the back disc, seemed to work a lil better, but the front is working worse again! So i will try filing off a small layer on the pads.

I really dont want to end up spending money on new pads!!