Anyone know anything about disc brakes?

Rather strange setup, righty fork?

Also caliper seemed to have been chopped and modified...

Righty fork, righty rear. Rob English doesn’t leave much unmodified.

Shame to pick such a naff rotor!

Could have brazed it on the other side, however if you're pushing the boundaries why not.

XTR caliper is still one of the best looking around and pity you butcher it!

My front calipers continue to scream so I took the pads out to have a look. They were covered in black grime, which is weird because I'm constantly dragging them to try and get them to stop screaming?

Gave them a rinse with some washing up liquid nd ground them together to try and expose some new surface. Not sure if that'll sort them, if not I've got more pads coming.

Do I possibly have a leaky caliper?

Yup, possibly leaky caliper.

If you wanna keep the pads, you'll need to burn the pads in 10 second bursts then wipe clean, repeat 3x.

What’s the go-to cable disc caliper?
I need to run one on my sweet fixie with cut down and flipped drop bars so a cable lever seems easiest.

Does anyone know what rotors/pads go best with these m315s from aliexpress?

If the pads are dead and you are in position to swap both get any rotor thats not 'resin pads' only and uberbike sintered pads.

otherwise stick with shimano resin

or canti @snottyotter

BB7 obvsly... ;)

cool, so these stock pads will be fine with any old rotor?

i can't keep track of disc brake stuff ...

They should be ok but if you have any other rotor a sintered pad would be much better and last longer.

Not spyre?

if the caliper is leaking you will feel a loss in power

BB7 are my preference due to reliability, accessibility of spares and ease of servicing when the time comes.

Spyre are not too bad either, dual actuated pads which is an upgrade over BB7 but other than that nothing much.

Could I live with adjusting the pads once a week? Yeah, why not.

Cool cool. Thanks beagle

Oh yeah, BB7 comes in long and short pull while Spyre are short only unless you wanna go for the beefy Spyke.

Also, avoid BB5 at all cost!

Spyres use shimano B01S pads, about as common as you can get, and are cheaper than bb7 a lot of places now whilst being better.
The correct answer is juintech semi hydros anyway.

megabucks though!

Nah, they're pretty reasonable, and actually really good.

My first google was over a hundred pounds so I instantly discounted them!

Finally decided to pop in new pads on my mtb. Buggered if I can get the pistons to recess enough to give me more than the width of a fag paper between the pads. Tried large screwdriver, tyre lever etc - against the pistons direct and using the old pads. They seem to be properly stuck (avid elixir 3).

Anything else I can try before heading to lbs?

Had this issue recently - only thing I could get to work was remove the pads, hold a tyre lever against one of the pistons and pump the brake lever a couple of times to focus all the hydraulic force on freeing the other piston.

Freed it up, but don't pump too many times as fluid starts to leak out if the piston comes out too far.

(This might be a terrible way to do it but worked for me).

Best to ensure not to damage the piston too, giving it a good clean and apply some dot oil around the piston can help.

Do both pistons move, either in or out, or is one jammed?

If both move, but you can’t get them to recess it might me that the reservoir is over filled.