Servicing your brakes

Just had to buy a new set of pads for my front calipers, shouldn't have needed em yet! I stripped and cleaned my calipers last winter and fitted new hydraulic and dust seals. I rubbed some brake fluid into the new seals and the space between em and then rebuilt and bled the brakes. My pads were fairly new. I have ridden all year with the occasional hot left hand disc, so after freeing off the sticking piston by cleaning and exercising it, I carried on riding. Anyway , two days ago I felt and heard a clicking noise from the front end and eventually after removing the calipers found that there was loads of brake material left on three pads and nearly NONE left on one of the left hand pads!!! Obviously one or both of the pistons on that caliper half was sticking and the others were compensating. What I should have done when all the pistons were out was apply a light smear of something called RED RUBBER GREASE to the new seals and the space between em . I bought a small tub off eBay for about £3 and this stuff is excellent as long as you only apply a tiny amount to the seals just before you put the pistons back in. So that cost me £40 for Honda pads from David Silvers when I could have got another 6 months out of the previous set if I'd have known about red rubber grease when I serviced them!!!

I got a little pack of red rubber grease along with the new seals when i last did my calipers, i was suprised to see that its the same silicon grease that i had in the shed which i bought from a cycle shop for a couple of quid about 5 years back.. but yeah, the silicon grease is a must use on seal's and wont contaminate the brake fluid.