wd40 on disk brake??!
 

i was oiling up my forks with wd40 and the most care possible yet when i began to ride my bike the brakes were slippy and not working correctly. the only thing i can think it is is the wd40 but i dont know how to remove wd40 from my brake? a friend told me to replace the pads but it's a hayes sole hydraulic disk so i dont know how easy/hard that will be.

much help appreciated

thanks, Jamie

Apparently, Lighter fluid is supposed to work.

I have used white spirit on my rims before, worked a treat.

Jack

Brake cleaner from Wal-Mart.

you can buy something called "brake cleaner" at any auto parts store which will get your rotors good as new. If the pads have absorbed the oil they may be ruined.

lighter fluid may work (its generally naptha) but it may leave an oily residue too. Brake cleaner will leave no residue.

You can clean the rotor with brake cleaner, rubbing alcohol, or dishwashing soap. The pads will need to be replaced if they are as oiled up as it sounds like. I would suggest spraying the WD40 into a rag first, I would also suggest not using WD40 to lube your fork. It would be fine for cleaning off the stanchions.

I would recommend rubbing alcohol.

Seems that you have plenty of suggestions for cleaning the brake rotors, I'll add something about the fork. Pure silicon lube is the thing to use on your fork stanchions (small quantities, apply occasionally). You can get it in a spray can at any auto parts store. It improves the smoothness of the fork's action, and will also make the rubber seals last longer. The suggestion about spraying it onto a rag first and then wiping it on is a good one.

citrus cleaner could work- try goo gone.

Also in regards to wd40: it is NOT a lubricant. You use it to loosen stuck metal parts. It will turn sticky and make moving parts perform worse than before. Get a can of GT-40 at your LBS if you want spray lube.

If you're using WD-40 for anything other than getting the squeak out of your front door hinges so you don't wake up your wife after a late night with the guys, you need to step away from the bike and let someone who knows what he's doing do the work.

I know this will annoy the WD-40 advocates, but it's true.

Try to go with highest percentage rubbing alcohol you can find. I've didn't have much success with rubbing alcohol until I found the ~90% concentrations available at Walgreens.

I've fouled rotors and pads before and was able to restore them by with rubbing alcohol by wiping down the rotors and soaking the pads.

wd-40 is useful... as a chrome polish. i personally wont use it on any moving parts for the reasons already stated, i use marvel mystery oil to unstuckify things.

+1. Regular rubbing alcohol on a cotton bal or cotton pad works perfect. LBS recommended it. Rub down each side of th rotor a few times. If you got the oil on the pads though, chances are you'll just have to replace them, or so I'm told. I found the canned air stuff works great to blow out dust and stuff from the calipers.

two separate co-workers of mine who never met both had methods of heating pads to make the work again after contamination. I haven't tried it, nor am I likely to, but in a pinch....

One would take one of those small benz-o-matic torches to the pad while holding it in the bench vise, and the other one would dry fry them in a frying pan (He's a young single mechanic, I'd imagine once he's got a female companion he'll stop with the pan abuse).

Ill actually use wd40 for one single bike task. That would be to spray on the threads of a fixed gear cog.
I choose wd40 for that job because I do want it to get sticky, and help hold the cog on a little bit better.

WD-40
W(ater) D(isplacement)

Kerosine probably works as well or better than the rest of the 'hype'.

Regards,
J T

lol i thought wd-40 was a lube. thanks guys ill try ONE of the suggestions lol.

Hey, speaking of WD-40 not being a lube:
http://bicycletutor.com/no-wd40-bike-chain/

For those of you advocating rubbing alcohol...do you really mean true rubbing alcohol or are you just using the term generically? True rubbing alcohol has various additives and organic oils like menthol in it to make it feel good on your skin. Probably not enough oil to bother a disc rotor, but any store that sells rubbing alcohol likely has a bottle of 90% isopropryl sitting on the same shelf for about the same price. This will be just alcohol and water (plus some volatile denaturants probably) so it won't leave any residue on the rotor.