BB7 ejecting brake pads
 

My winter commuter bike (Barron Outsider) has decided that enjoys ejecting the piston side pad on my front caliper.

The first time it happened I assumed it was a fluke but it keeps doing it.

Being a year round commuter the bike is pretty dirty and I am afraid that that if I clean it too much my all weather commuter creds will be negatively affected. So I was hoping that you smart people may tell me where the typical wear points are. I can't find anything in the diagrams online that looks out of place and I know the pads were fully seated yesterday. Is it new caliper time or do I just need to spend tomorrow finding a LBS which has the non-screeching organic pads in stock.

Thank you for helping me avoid cleaning my bike and keeping that smug edge over the fair weather riders. :D

Edit to add that the pad retainer clip was new and in the correct position, the seemed to be held in. I assume the caliper is dead but I could be doing something very wrong that has just "worked" for years.

I don't know if this is even possible, but maybe you have the brake offset to one side, and the static shoe backed off all the way, allowing the piston to move beyond the design limit.

When I put on my backup pads I actually did go out of spec by only turning in the outboard pad 5 clicks to center the pad exactly for that reason and it felt like they were holding.

I have the feeling that when the first pad fell out I may have not noticed and maybe braking flattened or peen the retaining um...retaining knobs? under braking pressure.

I don't know if this is even possible.

Unfortunately my other bikes either lack fenders or are in the middle of a rebuild so tomorrow I will be sporting a skunk stripe. It is funny how rain doesn't bother me but nothing is more nasty than road water.

Something is borked, or you really don't know how to install pads. as much as I hate sounding like Fietsbob, take it to a good shop. They can either install a set of pads properly, or tell you you need a new caliper. The one thing I can tell you to look at is the pad retaining clip, which is what grips the tabs on the top of the pads, has gone on vacation or something. Look at your rear caliper, assuming you've got one, and see if it's different. In theory, the pad retainer is available as a service part, I'm not sure it's actually available or not.

Yes, I should have looked at the rear before posting but it is a pain to get to due to the rear fender. I broke out the brake cleaner and q-tips and it appears that the body of the caliper is just done. The edges that retain the pad are worn down and ramped.

I would take it to a shop but it is a disc brake shimagnolo road bike, it is evil to make any shop deal with my bad life choices, especially at the start of their busy season.

I need to get the road version anyway as these are the mountain bike version which doesn't work well with pre-2006 ergo levers.

Thanks for the help everyone.