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    Did I fry my brake disc?

    Hello guys,

    I do not have much experience with bike maintenance. I needed new brake pads before a long ride with high elevation. And I only managed to buy some really cheap ones and changed them. I noticed that they are shit because they do not have that stopping power as the original ones, and after couple of rides I noticed they are grinding when they are hot and now my disk looks like this. Do I need to change the disk as well or just change the brake pads for original ones and use this disk?

    by Fair-Result-331

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    12 Comments

    2. VTMongoose on

      Did you sand the rotors before changing the pads? If not, you effectively just mixed the two pad compounds together and that’s what’s causing your issues.

    3. cheesenachos12 on

      You need to clean the disc rotor with rubbing alcohol and then bed in the brake pad material by going really fast, then smoothly applying the brakes until just before you stop to get the rotors really hot. Then bike a little to cool them off and repeat a few times.

    4. l34df4rm3r on

      First, use some disc brake cleaner. Clean the rotors and the pads and bed the brakes. You’ll find enough resources on YouTube on how to bed disc brakes. After that you can expect the stopping power to be available. 

    5. WrenchHeadFox on

      I have seen ultra cheap disc pads last one a handful of rides before the actual braking compound is gone. While I agree with the approach other commenters are taking, I would want to confirm that this isn’t your case *before* trying to bed the pads.

      You haven’t ruined your rotor but if there’s no braking compound on the pads, trying to bed the pads is a good way to ruin it.

    6. turbo451 on

      Did you install metallic pads on rotors that are for resin only? That will kill the rotors.

      Before you use those rotors, measure the thickness of the brake surface. They look worn and may be too thin. I believe 1.5mm is the min thickness for that rotor.

    7. FZ_Milkshake on

      It’s a piece of steel, there is nothing you can do to it, to permanently damage it (except wear it down over time), you got a yellow brownish tint, that is barely 230-250°C steel does not even care.

      Possibly contaminated your pads (or they might have just been really really shitty) and the rotor surface, clean with brake cleaner change pads, be careful not to get any grime on the pads and rotors.

      Never get really cheap brake-anything.

    8. yossarian19 on

      Just change the pads.
      You might get better results if you clean the disc first.
      I probably wouldn’t, but I probably shouldn’t be your roll model.

    9. grislyfind on

      If the disc is scored it needs to be replaced. Otherwise it can eat a pair of pads in one ride.

    10. Salty-Pack-4165 on

      They look fine to me. Just clean it with alcohol. My discs look the same no matter what.

    11. cspawn on

      An option I can stand behind is pulling the rotor, lathering it up with dawn dish soap and scrub it. Rinse really well then dose it with isopropyl alcohol to remove any remaining moisture.

      Sand the shiny surface off the pads and then bed them in properly.

      A lot of people say isopropyl only, but as a professional mechanic, scrubbing with dawn and then using iso has never let me down. Dawn removes grease completely, the iso just displaces the moisture and ensures a dry rotor. Just iso can work, but it’s far less reliable than actually degreasing the rotor and drying it completely.

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