My kid’s bike had contaminated brake pads, no idea how, hopefully not the infamous leaky Shimano caliper.

Rotors and pads off, good sand with fine sandpaper liberally doused in IPA. Rinsed and put back on, still squealing like an angry pig and refused to bed in.

Previously I’ve tried boiling them in water, soaking in IPA, all sorts, but have never successfully recovered pads.

Is recovering pads a myth? Does it only work if the problem is minor, or is a placebo and the real fix is cleaned rotors and re-bedding in?

I’m now off to buy another bulk box of uberbike pads…

Ever successfully uncontaminated brake pads?

No.
Been trying last week.
Liberal IPA and washing. 80 grit paper on pads and discs. Still banshee.
New pads. (Still squealing 😡😡😡)

No for me as well, always end up buying new ones.

Yes. Bike cleaner works for me, with a good soak and rinse.

BUT

If you clean the discs aggressively you will need to do the bed-in process again.

Yes. Cook over the gas hob holding with pliers until smokin’. Stinks. Let cool then if glazed sand with clean sandpaper.

I just leave them in the oven for an hour or so at the highest setting. Never fails.

I now have a small pile of ‘dead’ pads. Maybe next time my wife is out I’ll cook them for an hour and see what happens.

Gas hob, pliers, burn them with fire.

I used to put them on top of the wood burner for the evening with a nice fire going. Worked well for me to get rid of oil or fluid contamination.

Yes, done many times. Gas hob or the cooler part of a blow lamp flame, heat ’til they smoke then leave to cool naturally. Then the important bit – a quick tap with a hammer to try and knock the braking surface off the backing plate. Better to find you’ve broken the bond in the shed than coming down your first decent. Tbh though the bond is fine 99% of the time.

A gas flame and a pair of pliers to hold them. Hold them in the flame until they get hot and do not smoke any more when you remove them from the flame. The smoke is the contaminants burning off. Discs in the oven on 300 Celsius for 5-10 minute does the same on them. I know other people who put them in a dishwasher and say it works a treat, but I’ve never done that.

After trying everything else used the blowtorch method which worked, just be careful not to fry the pads

I soak the contaminated pads in automobile brake cleaner for a couple of hours and let them dry. I also take the rotors off the hubs and thoroughly clean them with brake cleaner. This works for me.

Yep either over a Bunsen at work or the gas hob if Mrs 100th is out.

yes, gas hob, bunsen burner or gas fire, hold them in the flame for 5 mins with some bbq tongues. make sure you also clean the disc rotor with fairy liquid, otherwise they just get contaminated again when you put them back in the calipers.

Obviously make sure that the calipers are also clean if the contamination came from bleeding the brakes.

I fried mine in a pan on the hob, worked fine.

I think it entirely depends on what the contamination is, and how badly affected the pads are. A few spots on the top layer can be burnt off reasonably successfully. If the caliper has been dripping steadily onto the pads for a few hours, I’d probably just throw them away, and start with a fresh pair – especially as it’s your lad’s bike

Yes. Clean the pads and disks with muc off brake cleaner, take a mouse sander to them both, clean them again and then re-bed the pads properly. If you don’t sort the disks at the same time I find the problem always comes back.

I just blow torch them till the stop smoking….

Yes.

Soak them in meths. Not long, about an hour unless they’re saturated, then I’d make it 24 hours. Use a container that is fire proof. I use an old metal photographic film tin.

Light the meths and let it burn off after they’ve soaked.

Lightly sand and re-use.

IPA is too sooty. The soaking is important. Too little residence time and you won’t have solublised all the oil in the pad.

If its shimano, I’ve had good success with replacing the transfer port seal to deal with micro leaks, but be aware – sometimes (but less often IME) its the caliper seals.

I have a possible fix for you…..I’ve used this on a few bikes now, on Shimano mostly, and it works. For Shimano it never seems to be a long term fix (caliper leaks? other contamination?) but it gets the pads and disc clean and can be repeated again as needed. Plus its simple and cheap to do.

Buy some of this:

Pink Stuff

(I’ve also seen it for sale in the £ shops.)

Clean the brakes and disc in situ, ordinary washing will do to get them visually clean. Then take a fingertip and scoop up a teaspoonful or so of Pink Stuff. Smear it over both sides of the disc, on the pad contact area. You’ll probably need a couple of teaspoonfuls on each side. You want a thin layer to coat both sides.

Then smear a little bit more on the pads. You could drop the wheel out for this if the pads are fairly new.

Wheel back in, go for a short ride, braking exactly as if you are bedding in new pads. The feel from the brakes will be pretty odd initially, but you’ll notice how quiet they get after the first couple of braking periods.

When this is done, rinse everything off with cold water, and give the discs a wipe down with a clean rag to remove any final residue. Then repeat the bedding in process immediately.

I think this works because the Pink stuff is both a fine cutting compound and degreaser, and removes a layer of contaminants from disc and pad. It also seems to remove the deposited pad material on the disc, hence why they need bedded in again.

Anyway. It might not work for you, but it seems to work on the bikes I’ve used it on. And as said, its cheap and simple to do.

Tried several methods including the oven method a couple of times and apart from stinking the house out for a couple of days, everything else of that failed.

I’ve never been able to recover pads – hasn’t happened that often but it is is seriously annoying when it does. I’m now just going to replace the pads if it happens again (which I’d decided upon when I last tried it about 12 years ago).

Also worth noting that the whole ‘burn the contaminants off’ thing is a bit of a reset. You do need to bed the brakes in again afterwards to ‘re-key’ the pads to the rotors.

I had reasonable results doing this repeatedly with a micro-leaky caliper. But in the end I bought new brakes.

Did once using the gas hob as other have said.

when i was a thrifty student, i tried it all. Boiling, oven baking (stupid really, cause ovens are inherently greasy), and red hot with a blow torch.
Nothing reliable.
Had a few pads come away from the backing plates too, which was terrifying and/or gouged the rotors.

Pads are cheap enough, now im a real person.

Scienceofficer

If its shimano, I’ve had good success with replacing the transfer port seal to deal with micro leaks, but be aware – sometimes (but less often IME) its the caliper seals.

God damn, i bet that’s what was wrong with mine, it didn’t occur to me that they could leak from there. It was doing my head in because all round the pad was bone dry, yet the pad would keep getting contaminated.

^^^

Yes, it’s a bit of a known ‘thing’. And a right pain in the arse.

Shimano also appear to have played a blinder with someone somewhere – why is there not a mass recall or warranty thing ongoing when it comes to such a safety-critical item?

Had a few pads come away from the backing plates too, which was terrifying and/or gouged the rotors.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2mLmTv1]Brake pad failure[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

Magura brake Was about 15 years old and thanks to CV-19 not ridden the commuter for two years and it just sat rusting in the front garden….

Rust has pried the pad off the backing plate:

[url=https://flic.kr/p/2mLmTuV]Brake pad failure[/url] by Ben Freeman, on Flickr

Yep blowtorch ’em!  And the rotor too!

I have been using the mucoff brake rotor covers when the bike is on the back of the van and they defo help!

I have been using the mucoff brake rotor covers when the bike is on the back of the van and they defo help!

This

Sand then a brief blast with the blowtorch seems to do the trick, along with cleaning the rotor and caliper with IPA. Not sure you really need to blast the pads for ages, unless they are seriously contaminated? I’d replace in that case though.

Take ’em out, blow torch them on a slab until they get good and smokey, let ’em cool and stick ’em back in the bike. Job done and works like a charm every time.

For reference, I have to do this with *every* set of road pads I use on the winter bike – often 2 or 3 times before they are worn out. There’s just too much contamination from the roads and if I didn’t do this, I’d approach every junction sounding like a cross-channel ferry entering port. It’s much less common on the MTB and I would say that most pads get worn out without needing attention. Likewise, the summer bike generally manages ok.

Have also experienced the leaky Shimano caliper issue, but each and every time it’s only been fixed by chucking them away and replacing. Some seem worse than others, but once they start seeping, it’s a lost cause.