Rear Brake Installation by project5k

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Rear Brake Installation by project5k

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Rear Brake Installation by project5k - 3/26/2007 2:27:10 PM

Patrick

Posts: 4300
Joined: 10/9/2004
Status: offline

Rear brakes. A short course in replacement.
What I have is a 97 civic ex, 195,000 miles, disk brakes up front, and drums out back.
I'm doing my rear brakes for a couple reasons; first and foremost I feel a pulsing in the brake pedal but not in the steering wheel. So it can't be the front brakes, and secondly, in the 100,000 miles that I've had this car, I've never done the rears.
This is not intended to be the end all is all instruction set. But this should give you a good idea of what it takes, and that you can do this yourself with basic hand tools, and a couple hours in the driveway.

What your gonna need

New brake shoes to fit your car
A spring hardware kit
Brake cleaner
A flat screw driver
Lug wrench
Jack
Jack stands
Pair of needle nose pliers
You may also need, depending on your particular needs and wear on the vehicle:

Rear hub assembly (for my car, this comes with new wheel studs, the hub, bearings, and a rear hub seal)
New hub nut
New drums (if yours are worn, not round, or have too much wear to be turned)
High temp paint (not necessary, but I thought it would look good)
New wheel cylinders
New hub nuts
Torque wrench
Socket to fit hub nut
So it's off to the rears.
First, jack the car up and securely support it on jack stands.
Then pull the rear wheels off.
This is what you should basically see.

I have inserted 2 8mm bolts into the holes in the drum, cause I know that these puppies are gonna be tough to get off.
Screw the 2 bolts in and going back and forth between then, turning them about 1 turn each time, continue till the drum comes loose from the hub.
Pull it off and put it aside.

Now look at the wheel cyl, it's the metal tube thing at the top. If it's wet, you will probably want to replace it. Its leaking brake fluid.

Now for a word of caution, brake dust can contain all kinds of nastiness, and I strongly suggest that you not blow the dust off with compressed air, it will clog up your nose, and can make you very sick. My suggestion is to use a can of brake cleaner. Spray it all down, this way your not gonna end up breathing in that dusty crud.

I just used the cheap stuff from my local auto parts place.
Spray down the brake assembly, but keep this stuff off any rubber parts or painted parts, this is pretty nasty stuff in its own right, so don't get it on your skin or in your eyes. it burns like a Mutha in the eyes!!!
I suggest getting some el cheapo rubber gloves from harbor freight or where ever. And use your hand to cover the wheel cyl. It has rubber boots that can be damaged.
I also suggest getting a drain pan and putting it under the assembly to catch all the crud, this way the neighbors wont call the EPA on you! Hehe. The liquid will evaporate pretty quickly.

Now, I suggest inspecting the drum, if you see deep grooves, or a lip on the inside edge, then I suggest having them turned at your local auto parts place. most will do this in about an hour for about $8 each. or you can do what I did and just replace them, cause I don't think mine are round anymore. they could probably be turned, but I wanted to paint them anyway, and new ones are much cleaner.

Grab hold of the hub and push and pull and rock it side to side, and spin it and see if you feel any slack, rubbing, grinding or if you hear anything. any of these would be an good indicator that you should look into your wheel bearings.

Now, look at the old shoes, and see if they are thin, grooved, or maybe even missing chunks. if any of these are the case, replace them. Its cheap and after reading this, pretty easy. you can use the new shoes as a thickness guide. if you see shiny metal around the surface of the old shoe, then their really gone. and have probably been chewing into the drums. Shame on you for not doing this earlier!

Now you have a choice. if your wheel bearings are ok, then you can do this job without taking the hub off, if your bearings are in need of replacement, pull the hub off now, it'll make the rest of the job easier. you can pull the hub off just to make the brakes easier, but you will need to replace the hub nut when you put it back on. it's a cheap part, so please don't reuse it. this is what holds your wheel on, if it were to come loose while your going down the road/track/ whatever, it could be bad, really really bad.

To get the old shoes off, use the flat blade screw driver to push on the retainer springs and turn the retainer studs so that they come out of the springs. Throw the springs and studs away, there are new ones in your spring hardware kit. The studs come out of the backing plate, with a little wiggling and getting that pinched flat end through a little hole.

Now that you have the retainers out of the way you need to swing the bottom of the shoes out of their retaining mounts. I used a flat blade screwdriver to help me with this.

Now that you have the 2 bottoms out you will need to wiggle and finagle the shoes, adjuster assembly, old springs and all out. I did this by taking the bottom spring off of the shoes, and gently separating the bottoms till I could swing then out and over the hub.

One thing that you will want to be aware of is that the e-brake cable is still attached to the bottom of the rear most shoe. This will make getting the assembly out a challenge. But it can be done.

Once you have this mess out and hanging by the e-brake cable, disconnect the e-brake cable by pulling the e-brake spring away from the shoes and sliding the cable end out of the slot.

Now lay the whole thing on the floor and disassemble. pay attention to where the adjuster is, and which way the long and short arms of it are. this must go back in with the gear ring towards the front of the vehicle. And one arm is longer than the other. If you don't get these parts back in like their supposed to be then the rear brakes wont auto adjust. Continue to disassemble, taking the horseshoe retainer clip off the rear shoe and tossing the clip, there a new one of these in your hardware bag.

Keep the stud that goes through the shoe, and the little springy washer and e brake actuator arm that comes off.
Take the old coily springs and toss them. Pull the end of the adjuster off, and wipe the entire thing down. get all the crud off of this.

Now, go wash your hands you filthy person. The reason for this is that you don't want any old grease or crud on your new pads. Grease and oil can soak into new pads and cause them to wear out faster and not provide proper breaking force.

Take the new long spring, short spring, horseshoe clip e brake arm, stud, springy washer, adjuster actuator, and 2 new shoes out and lay them out in front of you. assemble the e-brake arm to the rear shoe, just like it came off, making sure to use the new horseshoe clip. once you get that on, give the open ends of the clip a good squeeze with your needle nose to make sure its pinched on there real good, and down in the groove of the stud.
Put the adjuster actuator and spring on the front shoe, just like they came off. Now take the long spring, in my case it was green, and put it in with the longer straight end towards the shoe that has the adjuster actuator in it.

Now screw the adjuster in to make it shorter, but don't go all the way. Leave maybe 1-2 turns exposed. now get the adjuster between the shoes by placing one end into its slot, and pulling on the shoes to separate them so you can get the other end in. the adjuster actuator should go under the adjuster and it should look like this when you get this far.

Make sure that the actuator is in one of the teeth of the adjuster.

Now you are ready to put the new shoes in.
Reattach the e brake cable to the arm on the inside of the back shoe and then swing the new shoes up and into place.

Be careful as you do this, you don't wanna tear the little rubber boots on the wheel cyl, and pay attention to the wheel cyl, there are grooves in each end that the shoes should go into.

Also make sure that the bottoms of the shoes go behind the plate with the 2 big rivets in it. This is what holds the shoes in place.
Once you have the new shoes in place I suggest getting the new retainer studs or pins in. get them from the hardware kit, and put them in from the back side of the backing plate so that all you can see is the flattened end sticking through the new shoes.

Get 2 of the new retainer springs, and using 1 on each of the new retainer studs, press the spring with a screwdriver so that the stud comes through. you will want to be operating the screwdriver and be pushing with one hand, while the other hand is reaching over and behind the backing plate, holding the stud in place, and turning it so that the flattened part goes through the new spring, and then turn it 90 degrees so that the flattened part sits in the bends of the new spring.

Now that you have both studs in place, get the new little spring, mine was orange, and install it across the bottom of the 2 shoes. start by getting it into one shoe loosely, and then the other. this is a challenge, but using the needle nose pliers and some brute force to stretch the spring, it can be done.

The new spring will go behind the tab sticking down.
TADA! New brakes. it should look like this now.

Now if you had your hub off, put it on, or the new one, torque the nut to the proper specs, on my car its 138ft-lbs, and make sure to stake or dent it so that it cant turn. do this using a good chisel, hammer, and dent the nut where the wheel stud is grooved.

Put the cap back in by pressing it in by hand first, and then while spinning the hub, tapping it around the edges with a hammer. you will hear a difference as it seats into place.

Now it's time for your drums. If your like me, and are gonna put on new ones. you will have to clean them before you can use them. they come in a bag in a box. The new drum is covered with an oily substance that keeps it from rusting while in shipping and sitting on a shelf.

Hose the drum down with brake cleaner to remove all of this oil.
You can now install the drum. Just put it back on to the hub, getting it seated all the way in. and put the wheel back on, torque the lug nuts.
Now, go do the other side; it is very important that this be done to both sides at the same time. If not the brake system won't be balanced, and can cause problems.
Once both sides are done let the car down off the jack stands. Pop open a cold one!
A couple things to remember about new brakes. They take time to settle in. the pads need to get to know the drums for a little while, so go easy on them for the first little while. No hard braking!! Then after a few trips around the block and babying them, progressively stop harder and harder, not locking up the wheels, but getting close. And make sure you give the brakes time to cool between each hard stop.
Now I painted my new drums, so if you want to do that, insert the following steps prior to installing the drums.
This is an old drum and a new one side by side.

After cleaning the drums with the brake cleaner, find a suitable place to paint them. I'm using an old oven rack, cause I'm gonna bake my paint.
Spray them lightly, and make sure to not get paint on the inside of the drums. More light coats will come out better than fewer heavy coats. My first coat didn't even completely cover the outside of the drum. I'd say about 50% density of coverage. wait a few min and hit again with a slightly heaver coat. Proceed with this process following your paint makers instructions. I used this.