Getting the most out of brake pads..

[bugjuice]

k, this might be a bit of a 'cheap' question, and I am a logical person, but I've been thinking a bit about this..

The pads in my calipers are 4 individual pads per caliper.

Now, I've stuck some EBC HH pads in there a while ago, and upon inspection last weekend, the inner pads are more worn than the outter ones (or could be the other way round, can't quite remember exactly). Anyway, the more worn ones (equal on both pads and both calipers, so all's ok) are starting to approach the point of replacement, but the others still have a little more life in them yet.

So what would the merit be, in switching the sides?? In theory, I can't see any harm. But theory can be the mother of all fuck-ups, and I don't want to fuck up going into a corner and really needing new underwear..

any thoughts?

[GR81]

never mess with your brakes... not the kinda thing you want to fail cause you were trying to save a few pennies

[imdying]

Probably more merit in cleaning the calipers so they work correctly on the next set of pads.

[bugjuice]

gr81 - the brakes are fine, it's just a bit of odd-sided pad wear which is pretty normal. They aren't going to fail, and it there was any risk in them failing if they were swapped, then I wouldn't do it. I can't see any risks, so I just wanted to see if anyone had tried and found it a waste of time..

And imdying, they are clean. they're always (well, nearly) clean, and the calipers work fine..

[The Pastor]

You guys USE brakes????

[cowpoos]

I can't see why it would make any difference if ya swaped em over....I'ld do the same thing if I had un even pad wear....

[imdying]

I didn't mean cleaning the outside, I meant the important bits. Uneven pad wear isn't 'normal', it's indicative of a problem.

[bugjuice]

the inside bits are clean enough. and we're talking mm's at most, not excessive pad wear

[imdying]

Millimetres is a bit in bike brake pad terms... There can't be much wrong though, they're pretty bloody simple. You could take the calipers off, take the pads out, stick a spacer where the pads would normally go, and scrub the pistons with hot soapy water and a tooth brush. If that doesn't help, then the square section orings inside that distort under braking, and retract the pistons when they reform might be getting tired.

[justsomeguy]

Don't know about your fancy modern bikes but I used to regularly "flip" my pads on a push bike back in the day.

Can't really see how it can be a problem - after all it's just a pad rubbing against a piece of metal - the mechanical bits are elsewhere. Also the whole pad is made of the same material so flipping it over should mean that the new surface wears out at the same rate as the old surface or not at a hugely different rate.

You phoned Kerry and asked him??

[imdying]

Flipping the pads won't cause any trouble. The braking force might be less while they're running back in, but you won't lose brakes or anything nasty.

[Hoon]

Yeah I do it. I can't bare to throw away pads that still have lots of meat on them so I save them up for spares. Sometimes at the track you can get caught out and a pad will run out so I slip in the spare to get me through the day until I get a new set.

The bike can't tell any difference. The pistons will just push out to take up the slack and suck up a little more fluid. If anything your max braking efficiency maybe *slightly* reduced while it beds in if the wear is angled.

[The Stranger:Me]

Because of the linked brakes on the X11 and various other bikes the inside left pad wears worse.

I swap the left front set for the right front so as they wear even. Hasn't done me no harm yet.

Also save any unworn front pads for the rear, same caliper front and rear on the Blackbird and X11.

Damn I am a tight arse.

[Two Smoker]

Buy some new ones you cheap bastard...

[Blackbird]

There was a post on the UK Blackbird site a while back about how long pads last which was quite a revelation. Some guys were having to replace their pads every 12000 km or so whilst others went for over double that distance. Taking out the "nana factor", how smooth you are, assessing corner entry speeds, coming up behind other vehicles and so on has a pretty big bearing on pad life as you might expect.