Help me DIY my old corroded brakes!!

[Danronian]

Originally Posted by 1993CivicVX

I picked up a Haynes. The only tool that I know of that I don't have is a flair wrench for the brake lines which my friend is gonna try to pick up at Napa today. Tonight we will put the car up on the two car jacks I bought and then soak the rusty brakes with some stuff I bought (forget what it's called) and then tomorrow we start work.

Great plan. Spray everything you'll have to take off with the PB blaster. Sometimes just a one-day soak will really really help.

Good luck with everything!

[1993CivicVX]

Well, we worked on the brakes all day today. We didn't end up soaking everything in PB Blaster over night--partly because we didn't know what to soak. But we soon understood what we should have soaked and why this was so important! The parts of the brakes that connect to the e-brake were so seized up that it took us a good hour hammering and prying the shoes to salvage the seized parts after having them soak in PB blaster for 2-3 hours. But we did finally. The e-brake springs were caked in corrosion but we scraped them relatively clean with the brake cleaning fluid and wire brushes until they sprung back to life. So it looks like we will succeed in getting the e-brake working again without having to replace the e-brake cables. But we had some trouble with reinstalling the rear brakes. When we bled them, which we did with the rotor off, everything sort of went off kilter and when we tried hammering the rotor back on to see if that would help we damaged the shoe because everything was slightly out of place. So I have to get new shoes tomorrow. But my friend thinks it shouldn't be more than an hour or two before we're up and running. We were very exhausted and kept pushing ourselves to finish today and only ended up causing our selves more problems in our beleaguered, bleary eyed state. But we should put the rotor back on before trying to bleed the brakes?

[VetteOwner]

lol sheesh you HAVE to have the rum/rotor on when bleeding brakes... and how hard did you hit the shoes to break them? it should only be a ight tap if that. should eb able to move them side to side with your hands.if you put new shoes on then you have to turn the star wheel (adjusting screw) in a bit to account for the new thicker pads.then once its all together (DRUM ON) put 2 lug nuts on the studs to hold the drum there. then bleed (starting at right rear, left rear, right front, left front) now test the firmness of the pedal. if it goes to the floor dont drive it. now i cant remember if hondas adjust the rear starwheel by pulling up on the parking brake lever a bunch of times or if you have to drive forward, hit the brakes hard and then back hit the brakes hard. when you do that you are alinging the shoes with the drum and getting everything setteled in. THIS IS A MUST!

[1993CivicVX]

We did all that- brakes are working well. The only thing is the whirring sound in the back is still there. I dunno if it has something to do with the wheel bearings as my friend's '94 civic spin a little better than mine. I thought by doing the rear brakes it would be gone but no such luck. But the brakes are working very well. Little more pedal travel than I was hoping for, but the car stops. But, yeah, we had to redo the right wheel because we tried bleeding it with the drum off. *oops* Last thing to do now is to adjust the e-brake cable so it actually applies some pressure to the brake pads. But it should work, we got all the parts moving again, unless the problem was more than the seized parts in the rear brakes.

[VetteOwner]

the pedal should be firmer, either you didnt seat the adjusters (from driving back and forth or yanking the parking brake a few times) or you still have air in the lines. how are you bleeding them? and what order did you bleed them in?

[GasSavers_TomO]

The whirring sound in the rear is more than likely the rear wheel bearing, easy replacement and not too expensive. Around $35 for a rear hub with studs and bearings installed on it and ready to bolt onto the car.

[1993CivicVX]

Originally Posted by TomO

The whirring sound in the rear is more than likely the rear wheel bearing, easy replacement and not too expensive. Around $35 for a rear hub with studs and bearings installed on it and ready to bolt onto the car.

Nice! That would make the rear wheels fully overhauled seeing as I replaced the wheel drums as well. $35 for both sides? I will definitely look into that.

[GasSavers_TomO]

It's about $40 +shipping per side on Ebay HERE

[Danronian]

Great job on the brake work! It's easy to mess up your first time, but also much easier the next time.

I would make sure you're bleeding your brakes properly. With new brakes on the back, you should have less pedal travel, not more.

I agree, the whirring sounds is probably your wheel bearing.

Refer to the manual when adjusting your ebrake. There is a specific number of clicks that will tell you it's adjusted properly. Lucky for you, it's easy to adjust. You just need to take off the cover at the back of the ebrake console.

[1993CivicVX]

My friend admittedly did most of the work. Good to hear about the ebrake. Well, the noise actually is there when you apply the brakes. It's not a terrible noise, but doesn't sound normal. So there is a whirring noise, but there is also another noise when you apply the brakes. The Jiffy lube friend stopped by and test drove it and said the noise is normal and will go away in a week or two when the brakes have broken in a bit.

I thought I should have had less pedal travel, but it's about the same. I'm pretty sure we bled the brakes properly. We bled the backs and the fronts. The brake cylinder on the right side didn't look like it was sealing properly. There is a gap between the rubber and the metal. Is this normal? I believe the noise is coming from the right side more than the left. We had to do that side twice because the first time the cylinder was sticking (of course we tried bleeding the brakes with that drum off) when we reassembled everything looked right except the gap between the rubber part of the cylinder and the metal.

So let me just clarify. To adjust the ebrake I do not need to jack the car up? I can do it from inside the car on the brake lever?