How to Clean Mountain Bike Brakes - Cheap Brake Maintenance Hacks

This cheap product will do wonders to keeping your brakes clean and working well. If you suffer from brake fade, noisy brakes or regularly put your bike in messy conditions, give this video a watch.
We'll discuss what brake pad compounds you should consider, how to resurface your mountain bike brake rotors and pads, and what not to do!

Brake pads are easily contaminated by oils so we talk about a few key ways to protect your bike's braking power while avoiding contamination. Be sure to treat your rotors well, use Isopropyl regularly to keep surfaces clean.

Chapters
00:00 - 1:25 Introduction
1:26 - 2:59 Brake Rotors
3:00 - 4:38 Brake Pad Compounds
4:39 - 6:47 Big No No and Contamination
6:48 - 8:53 Brake's Best Friend and Resurfacing
8:54 - 12:15 Rotor Deep Clean
12:16 - 14:46 Closing

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[jetsjunkie]

Old video but here's a great pro tip - Get a box of dollar store shower caps. they slip right over them. Great for helping keep contaminants off.

[andrewsiasparks]

Good info. Don't forget to clean your master cylinder and pistons so you don't end up with leaks too.

[nhanlon]

If brakes start squealing again after a short while with new pads and clean rotors then you may have leaking pistons. It can be hard to spot as even a tiny leak creeps around the dust to contaminate the pad. Not cleaning your pistons before pushing them in to change pads can cause this.

[TheButlerNZ]

Brake Clean in a can... its specifically designed to.... Clean Brakes!.

I have used it on my motorcross bikes from the 90's on, and MTB's for the last 20+ years...
In fact as I only really started proper downhill in 2020 (retired from trail riding on the ol YZ) and got a 2nd hand Giant Faith with oil soaked pads (You can hear them in my 1st 3 videos)
After those test rides, I got a new shock and just cleaned the pads... Alternating between Brake clean and soaking/shaking in a small jar of Meths... finished with brake clean (wiping & soaking away debris with paper towels throughout).

Two and a half years later... same 2nd hand pads (ok so I did replace the rotor with a 2nd hand one from the local tip shop where I got a complete wheel for $5 to do a mullet experiment).
Ok also I can barely ride black trails.. but that does mean I'm on the brakes a LOT... no noise... 1 finger braking. (in fact changed to 1 finger for 1st time ever on 1st ride after the clean, never went back)

These are heat sync pads (Shimano BRM785) and I'm as cheap as I am Mediocre so I wanted to save them if I could... YES!


(Resurfacing... I use sandpaper and running water... The water will do nothing to the pad but washes the dust away... I glue the sand paper to a bit of wood.. but better is a bit of glass (watch those edges) if you want a precision flat surface. (You can use self adhesive sandpaper available at most hardware stores for disk sanders... some even have vent holes but I the prefer water method which also washes the pad so you can see instantly if the surface is good...
Again this came from doing pads on things like my YZ250 and with a big enough sheet of sandpaper and an old window I could also sand down the rotors a little (you can make high spots on an MTB rotor doing this as pressing in one point on a thin disk will sand just the point below... a motorbike disk is about 3mm thick so no where near the flex when sanding them...)

Very little video of my MX bikes but some pix of the old IT200 trailbike circa 92 on my 1m drop video (very end). Wish I could jump an MTB like I used to jump trailbikes... but then again a smashed wrist put me off doubles on the YZ... sigh.

[NWforager]

i've saved oily pads with alcohol and lighter . resurfaced pads and rotors with dremel attachments . being that the oily chain /cassette is like 3 inches away its out-of-touch to think people can afford to replace them if they get oily . And i get it that shops aren't in the business of being performance frugal .

[ahanief]

Good detail and nice takeaways- Appreciate the effort - subscribed 👍🏽

[walterreyes]

Good informative video...I use 3M 400 grit wet sand paper ..on the rotor have great results...to bed in new

[jokermtb]

It’s the brake pad material that gets embedded onto the rotor during the embedding process that makes the pads grip. Removing that with alcohol requires you to bed the brakes in all over again. Sand your pads all you want, but Leave the rotors alone, unless they become loose Beverly discolored due to uneven bedding in of pad material.

[brenth]

Great video guys! It is very timely as I was working on my rotors last night. Will definitely revisit my rotors again and use some of the tips yall gave.

[stubikeco]

My TRP DHR-Evo metallic pads run sooo quiet!! Couldn’t be happier with them 😁

[BlairAir]

Where is the bed-in video you were linking "down below"???

[jokermtb]

What about non chlorinated brake cleaner spray?

[scottc]

I'd love to know the difference between trp and Tektro in brakes and if things like the Tektro Orion's are any good

[peterpage]

Is it worth having resin pads in the front and metal in the back. To get the best of both worlds.

[johnballesta]

Some steel wool comes packed in an oily rust inhibitor

[rider]

Organic
Sintered-Semi
Kevlar
Ceramic
Metallic

[IronX]

So how do I get the pistons in my calipers moving freely again?

[dancing]

What grade steel wool did you use? Could you give a closer up look at dirty vs cleaned pads?

[gunshipanropacegunshipand]

Question here, can i use trp rotors on shimano calipers? Nearly reaching the limit on my current rotors and 2.3 is a tons instead of shimano 1.8s, Thanks

[Forestgump]

If the brake rotors get wd-40 on them do you have to replace them?