I like Skol
A Minging Manc...
- Location
- Sunny Ashton-under-Lyne
Had a minor brake hiccup on the way to work over the weekend. Not a showstopper, but was irritating listening to the constant scrape, scrape, scrape after this happened....
The pads are approaching the end of life but still have material left and this has never happened before even though I often run pads until there is nothing left and don't get any issues as a result, thereby extracting maximum life from something that is not the cheapest of consumables, especially with recent price hikes for seemingly simple minor parts like this.
I have often wondered why these springs are even fitted? Cars often don't have anything similar and on bikes they often cause noise as the pads get worn, then as in this case can get chewed up.
Well, I think I have worked out their sole purpose. I refitted the worn pads without a spring (I do have old ones I could fit but decided to try without) so I could continue running them for a bit longer. I even have new pads in stock ready to fit, but the remaining pad thickness will last many hundreds of miles more so I will continue to use them as long as they perform.
Just done a test ride and they were perfect. No rubbing noise, no rattling, no change in braking at all. The ONLY thing that was different was getting the wheel in as there was nothing to keep the pads apart once the disc was removed and the pads are just retained by the pin. Not a problem as long as you are aware of this and adept at refitting the wheel anyway, so hardly a problem.
So there you go, throw away your disc brake pad springs and shave a gram or two off your bikes weight
Before anyone says to buy pattern/copy pads cheaply and replace before they wear out I will point out that this hasn't ever worked for me. They may be cheap but IME are noisy, not as powerful and usually lose bite and stopping power soon after getting approx half worn so have to be binned prematurely very often despite cleaning and roughing up. Genuine Shimano pads don't do this and just work, right up until the metal, quietly stopping you from new to the very end.
The pads are approaching the end of life but still have material left and this has never happened before even though I often run pads until there is nothing left and don't get any issues as a result, thereby extracting maximum life from something that is not the cheapest of consumables, especially with recent price hikes for seemingly simple minor parts like this.
I have often wondered why these springs are even fitted? Cars often don't have anything similar and on bikes they often cause noise as the pads get worn, then as in this case can get chewed up.
Well, I think I have worked out their sole purpose. I refitted the worn pads without a spring (I do have old ones I could fit but decided to try without) so I could continue running them for a bit longer. I even have new pads in stock ready to fit, but the remaining pad thickness will last many hundreds of miles more so I will continue to use them as long as they perform.
Just done a test ride and they were perfect. No rubbing noise, no rattling, no change in braking at all. The ONLY thing that was different was getting the wheel in as there was nothing to keep the pads apart once the disc was removed and the pads are just retained by the pin. Not a problem as long as you are aware of this and adept at refitting the wheel anyway, so hardly a problem.
So there you go, throw away your disc brake pad springs and shave a gram or two off your bikes weight
Before anyone says to buy pattern/copy pads cheaply and replace before they wear out I will point out that this hasn't ever worked for me. They may be cheap but IME are noisy, not as powerful and usually lose bite and stopping power soon after getting approx half worn so have to be binned prematurely very often despite cleaning and roughing up. Genuine Shimano pads don't do this and just work, right up until the metal, quietly stopping you from new to the very end.
