I’ve been noticing some horendous sounds when I brake so I decided to see what the culprit was. It turns out I have a lot of metal shavings in my brake pads, both front and rear. These are replacement pads and I din’t really pay attention to what make they are; they were mid-price so I put them on. Fortunatly I have some new Ultegra pads laying around so I’m going to put them on and hopefully the screetching will stop.
Also, while I have your attention, my rims are almost to the point where the brake wear indicators are gone from braking. I realize that these are there for a reason and the rims should be replaced but the wheels only have ~3000 miles on them. One of my buddies said I ride the brakes too much, my response was that if everyone were faster I wouldn’t need to hold the brakes during the entire ride. I do use the brakes a fair amount given the routes I take but just under 3000 miles seems a little low for the rims. Perhaps they are worn because I have been using metal in my pads and they’re working like a file when I stop. What say you?
they are Xero Lite XSR3. I don’t ride in the rain unless I get caught in a thunderstorm. I do ride a lot of hills with sharp turns at the bottom that require slowing down or tumbling off the side of the road.
The rims are worn pretty evenly on both sides so maybe its normal for these wheels. I think 3k is a little fast for them to be shot.
It turns out I have a lot of metal shavings in my brake pads, both front and rear.
Brake pads (on cars or bikes) work by turning kinetic energy into heat. They need to be abrasive to work, and they need to be able to absorb heat, and/or transfer it up into the rest of the brake hardware or into the air. Braking systems are always a tradeoff between enough friction to get the job done and too much and wearing down the parts. The metal shavings in the pads are there to both create friction and to serve as a heat sink. The pads can get hotter with the metal in there.
so the metal is supposed to be there? Depending on the make of course. I thought that it was the wheels wearing down too fast and some of the shavings were getting caught in the pads. I’ll have to stop by the shop tomorrow and see what kind of pads they were.
so the metal is supposed to be there? Depending on the make of course. I thought that it was the wheels wearing down too fast and some of the shavings were getting caught in the pads. I’ll have to stop by the shop tomorrow and see what kind of pads they were.
Well, I didn’t mean to say they’re supposed to be there…what I meant was that some pads have been known to be designed that way. Yours might just be picking up metal from the rim. Pads have stuff blended into the rubber – everything from metallic powders to ceramics to sand (in the olden days, it was asbestos).
The main point is that all pads wear down rims (and discs and drums). Metal comes off the rim, no matter what pad you use.
I didn’t think they’d have metal in them but just wanted to clarify. If there were metal in the pads then they would have too much friction and rapid wear. Its weird that the shavings got caught in the pads. It looks like the shavings are pretty deep so tomorrow I’m going to try to file them down and see whats going on and maybe bitch to the guy who sold them to me as they don’t have too many miles on them. Oh well, I’ll try out the new pads later this week when it warms up al ittle.
I get metal and crap lodged in the pads quite often. I usually pick out the metal out of the rubber pad using a safety pin. I am not sure where it comes from but I don’t think it is a big deal.
I bought a Giant C1 about 6 months ago and had the exact same thing happen with the stock break pads. I couldn’t figure out how the metal got in the pads so I pulled them all off and cut one of them up. It turned out that there was metal shavings and chunks throughout the rubber. I thought I had picked it up on the road somewhere. The Wrench at my lbs said that cheap rubber can have defects like that. Needless to say, I pulled the pads and put in Kool Stops and have had zero problems since.
You might want to also sand down the rims slightly with a fine grit sandpaper. I had this issue before and changing the pads in combination with the sanding solved the problem.