sawdust_tom

I am still working on my parking brake problem with my 2000 Civic 2Dr EX. When I replaced all the rear drum brake hardware I got two new brake wheel cylinders. The problem is they were not marked left or right so I just guessed.

Does anyone know how to tell a left brake cylinder from a right brake cylinder? When installed are the bleeder valves towards the rear of the cylinder (rear of the inlet fitting) or towards the front of the cylinder?

Mad Dog Tannen

pics please

sawdust_tom

Did some research and pushed the guy at AutoZone to look up actual pictures of the driver / passenger side wheel cylinder.

1. Functionally the two cylinders are identical and interchangeable;

2. The only difference between the driver / passenger side wheel cylinders is the direction that the bleeder valve points. AutoZone and best practices suggest you install the wheel cylinders with the bleeder valves pointing towards the front of your Civic. This is merely a convenience and this standard may well NOT work for other cars.

caveat Emptor - Wheel cylinders are NOT always interchangeable between driver and passenger side brakes.

Mad Dog Tannen

That's pretty much what I was going to say, but I didn't know where the bleeder valves were. The cylinders push equally in each direction.

phil6006

so basically what you're saying is that I could have gotten 2 drivers side cylinders from autozone because none of them had a passenger side one and got this done tonight instead of tomorrow?

well just realized/remembered you need a flare nut wrench to take off the brake line to change the cylinder, so i can't get it done tonight anyway.

Can anyone tell me the size of the brake line nut so I don't have to buy more than one wrench?