paramountx

Hi, so I decided to try to fix up a bike I found as a project. The brakes are squeaky pretty bad. Some fixes I understand are to be, cleaning the surfaces, making sure pads it's not glazed over, toe check. And maybe I need new pads; can you tell from this picture if my pads are worn and how do you know and which pads I can replace them with

dedhed

Plenty of meat there. file and sand. Hold off on new pads until you find out how much other parts and $$$ it needs to make everything else functional. Don't need to drop $150 into a $50 bike.

Andrew R Stewart 

The LH pad (as seen in the photo) might have a wear ledge along it's bottom rear. There's a different shading to that spot. This wear is pretty common as when the pad is allowed to not contact the rim fully the part that isn't touching won't wear but the rest will (and sooner as there's less surface to do the same work). In time these ledges can cause the pad to catch on and be held by the rim, brake rub results.

Otherwise I agree with dedhed in that the pads still have miles to go as far as thickness goes. Deglaze the pads and even up their surfaces then readjust the pads/brake. BTW old pads are less effective ar stopping even if they are unused the old compound will loose it's grippiness. Andy

Rolla

Even though there's plenty of life left in those, I'd get new pads anyway. The longer, salmon-colored Kool-Stop or Yokozuna V-brake pads just do a better job of stopping than those rock-hard OEM ones.

hokiefyd 

One of the best mitigations against linear pull brake squeak or squeal is properly toeing the pads, so the front of the pad contacts the rim before the rear of the pad does. Park Tool has some great instructional materials on this.

You should be able to sand down and de-glaze the original pads, but they're still likely hardened from age and environmental exposure, and your brake action will still likely be just marginal. I second the suggestion to invest in a set of Kool-Stops. Any threaded post brake pad should work for you. I recommend the Thinline model for best tire clearance (when trying to remove the wheel from the bike).

dedhed

While agree new Kool stops are the answer, looking at the picture, those are low end brake arms indicating the bike is likely a big box BSO. Throwing $20-30 worth of Kool stops into it BEFORE it's determined it needs another $100 worth of tires/cables/chain/RD etc is a bad investment at this point.
Assess the whole bike's needs and price out parts needed before purchasing anything.

Iride01 

I never had or used cantilever brakes, but isn't the front of the pad supposed to touch first on them. Maybe it's just because these are open and the arm is hanging out of alignment, but looks to me like the rear of the right pad (left side of photo) is going to touch first.

There have been a couple threads in the past where the OP said once they got the correct toe in, then the squealing stopped.

msalvetti

Learned something new - I thought the rear of the pads were supposed to touch first. When mine squeal I set them up this way. Seems to work (braking is good and no squeal), but next time I will try setting them so the front of the pad touches first.

Mark

Iride01 

Remember this part of what I said.... So I might be incorrect. If you haven't gone and found out from reputable sources how they should be adjusted, then I might be telling it wrong. I'm just going by memory of old posts.

hokiefyd 

The pad toe is applicable to most types of rim brakes. You want the front of the pad to touch first...the forward motion of the rim will want to pull the pad forward and rotate it towards straight, which engages the rear of the pad. Setting the pads to where they're dead parallel with the rims often induces squeal because the rim will try to pull the pads forward and rotate them away from parallel, which starts this harmonic where the rear of the pad is gripping and slipping as it's binding in the system.

Imagine dragging a shoe along the ground as you ride the bike. If you angle it up in the front, to where the rear drags, it'll drag along smoothly as you pull it. If you angle it up in the back, to where the front contacts first, it'll sort of skip and jump along the pavement. That skipping and jumping is exactly what happens with brake shoes that that noise/harmonic manifests itself as squeal.

Rolla

You are correct. The "toe" of the pad should hit before the "heel."

The OP, it seems, understands this:

Iride01 

I just wouldn't assume because it's mentioned that it's being performed correctly. There have been plenty of threads in the past where the OP or another claimed to be toe'ing in their pads. But they were toe'ing in the wrong direction.

Rolla