galokar

hello...where's the bleeding line or the best place to bleed the system ..if i change the brake shoes? thanks

Ironliftr3

Maybe I just got lucky, but I didn't find this all that difficult. Took me about 2.5 hours total, both sides, I did have the Haynes manual which was no better than this tutorial. @150K, I replaced the shoes, and all six springs (3 each side). Ordered the U clip because I was afraid of damaging one, but didn't end up needing it. A little patience is required!

BlueEM2

iTrader: (1)

Figure I'll bump this because it's a good DIY. I just completed it ... What a pain in the ***. Seriously. All Honda had to do was make the cylinder a few mms smaller or placed slightly different and this would be so much easier because you can slide the almost assembled shoes in there. But the space is not there so you have to assemble it in the housing. Anyway, the first side took me two and a half hours by myself, my friend showed up for the other side (no experience whatsoever) and it took us 30 minutes for the second. No more brake squeak whoo hoo.

Thanks boiler.

moejama

If anyone is still reading this do it the easy way and take the wheel hub off. It takes a couple minutes max and it makes the job 10 times easier.

It's much easier to attach the top spring, the long one and then put the celivis back in and use that as kind of a pry bar. This way you don't have to stretch the spring into place you just attack it, put the bar in there and put the shoes into shape and the leverage from the bar just king of pops everything into place then put the bottom spring on and then wrestle with that stupid ebrake cable spring contraption. Mine was a 6th generation not 7.

The first one I did was a nightmare because I didn't take the wheel hub off, it was hard to take apart and insanely hard to put together until I read the manual better and it mention it MIGHT be easier with the wheel hub off. OF COURSE IT IS.

I also found compressing the brake pistons to help it all go back together much easier.

SO yea it's an old post but just in case someone reads it. I just did one wheel the hard way and it's basically a nightmare. I could have probably one 6 or more disc brakes in the time it took to do one drum brake the hard way.

azcat90

On an '02 Civic LX Sedan we didn't have time to get a free brake inspection at Midas/Monro so I assumed the drums needed done after 95K miles but they still had some life in them.

We were also replacing the front disk brakes and since I had bought all the parts I went ahead and replaced the drums too.

It would be nice if the adjuster arm fit between the hub and the wheel cylinder so you could assemble it first.

I didn't have a helper on wheel #2 so I held everything in place with plastic cable ties as tight as I could and then pulled the top spring across (using needlenose pliers, thick leather gloves and a lot of grunting) and connected it... After everything was in I cut out the ties. Cable ties save the day again...

HondaFamily2

Maybe I missed it, but with respect to removing the upper and lower springs (i.e., I'm talking about the longer and shorter springs and not the U clips), is there a special tool required (some sort of hook) or do I just grab the uncoiled section with a needle nose? If I use a needle nose, I'm concerned about putting a stress concentrator (i.e., nick or gouge) in the metal, which may cause the spring to fail later on.

The drum brakes have never been replaced, are original and still have approx 0.093" left on the shoe pads.

Thanks.

2001 Civic LX
210K mi

Nosepicker

Damn, and I just found out last weekend from Midas that I need the rear shoes replaced. This seems harder than replacing the Timing Belt from what I gather from previous posts.

Did anyone follow these instructions?
http://www.hondatuningmagazine.com/t...chback_brakes/


If so, did it make replacing/reinstalling a breeze?

BlueEM2

iTrader: (1)

A few months after I finished mine, they started squeaking again. Obviously I did not lube the appropriate places

Misbah

I just finished doing these as well. What a pain. The top spring is definitely the most troublesome, as is the mounting nut for the wheel cylinder that's in front of the strut. Other than that all you really need is an extra pair of hands.

On re-assembly I connected the parking brake cable first, then clipped the rear shoe into place. Then I clipped the front shoe in to place, placed the bottom portions of both shoes behind the tabs and put on the bottom spring. Then I shortened the clevis all the way and pulled the top part of the shoes apart and dropped it in. Then I did the top spring (took forever) and then I did the self adjusting thing on the front shoe.

There are like 5 or 6 (can't remember) contact points that should be greased up with high temp lube/brake quiet. They'll match up to the 3 metal tabs on the side of each of the shoes.

I changed the wheel cylinders as well as all three springs, shoes, and drum.

MattR

As everyone else has said, this is a huge pain the first time you do it. I spent 8hrs on it total, but I don't have a whole lot of mechanical knowledge. A couple of problems I ran into.

1) I was trying to bleed the brakes without the drums on. This resulted in the piston covers popping off, or in one case the piston itself almost popping off. I couldn't figure out why they kept popping off until I realized that the drums provided a stopping point. This is something someone more mechanically inclined may have caught onto quicker.

2) I picked up a spring replacement kit from Canadian Tire. The dealership here didn't carry a replacment kit, just individual parts, which were expensive. The UClips came in handy. The upper return spring included in the kit did not provide enough tension, and neither did the original that I had removed. So I had to shorten a spring and add a new hook to it.

3) Having someone to help is key.

Next time it will go quicker and I learned a lot about drums, shoes, clevius and bleeding brakes.

Civicnoobie

i could be wrong but doesnt the top spring go in that far right hole? When you have the spring in the left hole the spring sits way too loose.

Trauma

iTrader: (1)

Boilermaker,

Thanks for putting this together.

I just replaced all my brakes, front and rear.

The rear brakes were torture.

One tip that I did was to put a c-clamp on the rear most brake shoe when installing the spring that spans both, this prevented it from moving as you are trying to get that ridiculous spring on.

Nevertheless, done, thanks for the good write up.

bmnot

I know this is an old thread, but man... Haven't any of you guys ever heard of a brake spring tool, lol? It makes the difference between all the frustration you've just read about and "<YAWN>." And they're about the cheapest tool known to man, too.



Beats trying to pull those springs with pliers/fingers/etc., you don't have to worry (so much) about sticking something in there that's either too large or likely to let loose of the spring.