dijabutia

For whatever reason, my right rear drum brake is dragging (00 Civic CX). I have checked the parking brake cable, it is fine. I have tried to reset the clevice (the U pronged arm with the star on it) but that did not work. I can make the clevice smaller, but the pistons on the slave cylinder refuse to go back in; I can push on the shoes to retract the pistons, but they just come back out after I release them. I have tried opening the bleed screw and then pushing the shoes in. Some fluid (valvoline synth) has came out, but the pistons just come back out again after I close the bleed screw and release the shoes.

I have no idea what is wrong, does this mean the slave cylinder is dead? My car only has 75k miles on it. I do autox; koni's + ground controls. I have owned the car for a year, with no problems and I did not touch the rear brakes until now.

dijabutia

Bump!

PhatBoy5015

Its not a slave cylinder, its a wheel cylinder. Just replace it and see what happens. They are only like $15.

Or you could make your life a lot easier and swap to rear disc.

dijabutia

I tore the slave cylinder down. Not sure what I'm supposed to be checking for, but it looks fine to me. Put everything back together and flushed the lines. No go, its still dragging. WTF

i heart honda

The wheel cylinder will be wet if its bad. Which means its leaking brake fluid. I doubt that is your problem, but as stated in an earlier post they're only like 15 bucks and worth a shot.

Get something to hold th ebrake pedal down, disconnect your brake line from the cylinder, unbolt it slap the new one in, put the line back on, and bleed that corner. If that works your home free. If not let us know whats going on.

I would also check the pads... are they cracked, sitting flush, what does all your hardware look like. The hardware inside the drum for the ebrake like to freeze up and that will cause them to drag as well.

dijabutia

Cylinder wasnt leaking. I disassembled and reassambled it.

Problem is, if i try to make the adjusting arm smaller, the pistons on the cylinder refuse to retract. I can push them in, but they just slowly come back out. I have tried opening the bleed screw to push out fluid, to see if i could get the pistons to stay retracted but it didnt solve the problem.

Pads are fine, rest of the equipment is fine. Ebrake works fine.

Rock Meathammer

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by i heart honda &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> what does all your hardware look like. The hardware inside the drum for the ebrake like to freeze up and that will cause them to drag as well.</TD></TR></TABLE>

^^ That's where my money is at.

dijabutia

What do you mean specifically by froze up? B/C the parking brake works fine. Should I try spraying all the parts down with brake cleaner and regreasing? The springs seem fine to me. I'll look into a spring kit and a new brake cylinder.

postman

it cant be dragging that bad if you were able to take the drum on and off. they are supposed to drag some

also typically wheel cylinders cant be rebuilt and work like there supposed to. yes its possible but unlikely

dijabutia

Well, it didnt just "come off"... I had use the screw method. You can hear it dragging when you drive (large Wumping noise from the rear), and you can touch the drum and is VERY hot (disc's are cool in comparison).

postman

are all of your return springs hooked up. did you recently replace the shoes, if so maybe backwards

dijabutia

All my springs are on correctly. I had this problem BEFORE i touched the brakes (unless you think they were given to me installed correctly). I have had the car for ONE year, before it developed this problem. I didn't touch anything on the rear brakes until it developed this problem. I measured the shoes and they are new. From the look of the grease, the car looks like someone had done a brake job before I bought the car.

dijabutia

Well, after a ridiculous amount of time and thanks to the process of elimination (starting with the MOST expensive parts ), its fixed.

Springs were bad. Looks like who ever did the brake job put on new springs on ONE side of the car... cause I tried taking those off and that was hard as hell!

Thanks for everyones help!