Help; disc brakes have lost bite!

[Paul Eggleton]

Gave my new Zesty its first proper clean the other day and then was pretty liberal with the wd40 on the moving parts, but making sure i was avoiding the brakes. However, I must have got some on the disc, or they've not got on well with fairy liquid, as the front one has lost all the lovely bite it had. I've cleaned the disc with white spirit which has helped a bit but it's still not as sharp as it was.

Any tips on what I can do before I start changing pads??

Cheers

 

[cyfa2809]

Fire the pads off? then file off the top edge.

 

[Bullpup]

All joking apart, I use (car) brake cleaner.

 

[B77]

Once pads are contaminated they sometimes get back to as good as they were, if your'e lucky. Most of the yime you'll end up needing new pads.

 

[d00m]

White spirit is a bit oily for brake cleaning. You want to proper brake or clutch cleaner. Pound land and similar usually have some kicking about.

 

[Andy B]

Use a proper disc brake cleaner on the rotor & the pads

pure Iso Propyl Alcohol (IPA) is recommended by all the brake manufacturers and can be bought off ebay for a couple of quid

Give the pads a quick filing

Bed them in again

Do not boil the pads, or stick them in the oven to 'burn' off the contaminants. This has been known to destroy the pads.

If the above fails then new pads & re clean rotors

 

[Paul Eggleton]

Thanks chaps, will give it a go.

 

[Blackstar]

A mate did the same thing.

Seeing smoking brakes after a stop down hill was hilarious

 

[suburbanreuben]

If you've got white spirit on the pads, chuck'em! They'll never be the same again.

 

[Mindmap3]

Bearing in mind how cheap pads are from Superstar, I'd ditch them and get some new ones and invest in some proper brake cleaner.