Squeaky noisy brakes/"bearings"

[Zed Head]

Just replaced my brake pads with some Beck Arnley 089-0020 pads, from Rock Auto, and after a few hundred miles I noticed some noise. It sounded a lot like a wheel bearing going bad, but other times it sounded like something small caught between the disc and pad, like a piece of gravel. Sometimes there was no noise at all. But it wasn't consistent enough to decide which source was most likely, so I took the pads back out to look, before changing bearings that had seemed fine before.

What I found was that the paint, a thick coating, on the sides of the pads had debonded from the pad material and was sticking up like a reed, rubbing on the disc. Apparently, if the orientation and/or position was right it would make noise without the brakes being applied. With the pads off I stuck a razor blade between the paint and pad material and peeled/chipped off all of the excess paint from the sides of the pad material. Reinstalled and the noise was gone, I've put enough miles on to be sure it's for good.

Just posting for future reference in case anyone has the same issue. I might guess that the pads were discounted to Rock Auto for excess returns, or were just old and the paint got brittle, or something similar, so this could happen to someone else.

It's embarrassing to "scrich, scrich, scrich" up to a bus stop full of people, not really sure if they're looking at the Z or the noise.