Bike Jedi

Well I tried that with another pair, just to see and feel, but at the same time, there was a new rotor exchanged and went up a size in rotors. I figured if I toast that pair of pads trying again, I can run down and grab some new ones, even though those are fairly new, and REI is close at $10 bucks a pop if I mess it up again. The brakes weren't really squeaking to begin with, but there was a hard sound at the end of braking, but not why I was doing it at all. I was doing it to see if I mess the pads up again trying. Didn't do figure 8 but did do circular this time instead of back and forth. Maybe did different directions in circles, can't recall now, but did it very lightly this time and only on flat surface.


Combination of everything made my cheap entry level hydro's pretty dang good suddenly. Adding a 180 rotor to the front on my current setup made a night and day difference so I don't know what was the true variable to make it all nicer, but the brakes are running the best and quietest they ever have since I owned the bike. That's new rotors all around, new pads on back, and lightly sanded front pads. Super, super, quiet now.


Living in mountain riding, I wish that I switched over to a 180 front rotor a long time ago too. It's actually such a big difference and how much more dependent and I can get on the front brake now. Wow! I will never be at less than 180mm front rotor again if I can avoid it.


My new build has 2 180's on it, full SLX, and all Icetech. I can't wait to descend on it and see and feel what that is really like


The short of the long story shared is...perhaps you are correct and it will work, I just didn't know what I was doing and think I was dealing with bad pads anyway and trying to salvage something I shouldn't have been. I think for now on my new standard is putting in new disk brake pads with every new rotor regardless. I cut at tad into the new rotor with those other pads I tried to salvage and handled the entire procedure like an ape. So now I also learned not to take chances like that on new rotors and just throw on new pads anyway


Bike lessons get to be expensive over time, but it's starting to become pretty fun working out a lot of those little lessons and starting to have a pretty good skill set from it all. The learning curve picked up here helps tremendously. If I couldn't collaborate with people on that, I would have probably tossed the idea as "no good" and not tried again. Glad I mentioned something. Thanks for the tip.

djb

a quick note.
The other day riding this same bike and I realized that since last august 2019 when I put this up, I rode all fall and now this year have put another 1100 kms on that bike and the brakes still are NOT squealing again, so my little fix has worked for a fair amount of time.

BUT I still have not gone to a shop to get the rotor thickness measured, and now all the bike stores are closed with the COVID situation.
I must remember to go when they open up and get it measured and get their recommendation of if its still good or not.

seeker333

I'm sure I know the answer if you ask a person whose primary job is sales "Should I replace this part/component/widget/etc?"

You can buy a decent digital caliper for 10 bucks in the USA (a bit more up North):

https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=digital+caliper

Those guys in your LBS are probably clueless as to when to replace a rotor. I recommend you call Avid directly on Monday and ask them, I have before and they are nice and very helpful.

https://www.sram.com/en/company/contact

djb

thanks seeker, the one store I have gone to for years has some really knowledgeable guys, know their stuff and have been really honest with me. It was one of them last year who measured my front rotor and said it was fine then, using his digital caliper.

but yes, in general asking "do I need to replace this" will tend to get a yes answer, I get it.
thanks also for the avid suggestion. Will do. I will check my rotors, Im fairly sure they are orig avid rotors, but will check.
cheers

niknak

If you are going to use calipers to measure the rotor thickness, make sure you're not measuring the thickness of the rotor edges, which typically don't get touched by the pads. You'll get a false reading that your rotor still has life left.

I put a pair of short pieces of welding wire, one on each side of the rotor's middle section, and measure the total thickness. Then measure the thickness of each bit of welding wire and subtract it from the total thickness you measured first. That'll get you an accurate thickness.

A micrometer is a better tool for the job though.

djb

ya thanks, I had thought of the importance of measuring the actual pad touched areas.
still a moot point as I don't have a doohickey, but good to mention.