relentlesstech

THIS IS NOT A POST ASKING FOR HELP! THIS IS ABOUT MY EXPERIENCE DOING MY BRAKES, AND WHAT OTHERS MIGHT EXPECT WHEN DOING THE SAME!

Today I decided to put new drums, shoes, ebrake cables (Since mine had been broken since I bought the car three years ago), wheel cylinders, and all new hardware - I figured, 'This shouldn't be too bad, according to the DIY videos!', forgetting that 98% of the time in those videos everything is already 'loosened', or other prep work has been done to ensure 'easy' work. So, after watching a few vids, I set out at 9am, into the brisk 25 degree cold, and proceed to take my wheels off, and get ready to remove the drum ... And this is about the time where my upbringing in a sailor's house became quite apparent, as I started yelling every curse known to man (And a few customized ones) just trying to remove the FIRST DRUM! I used bolts in the holes, I used heat, i used a 5 pound sledge, and no budging at all - I emptied 3/4 of a can of PB Blaster onto it, sat down, had some 'head meds', and went at it again - After another twenty minutes and a 48" wrecking bar, I FINALLY got it off - By now I am almost an hour into this, and I just managed one drum ... I'm like, 'WTF! At least the rest should be easier!' ... I should have known better than to think that! After removing all the internals, I set about to taking off the wheel cylinder (Which wouldn't have been any problem at all if I could actually tell there was a bolt amongst the rust boulders that formed on it), and after another twenty minutes just trying to knock the rust off enough to get a wrench on it, I gave up, and decided to just take the whole shield off - Okay, makes sense, but I have to take the brake line out of the cylinder ... BWAHAHAHAHA! Apparently the previous owner thought it would be clever to WELD the connection at some point (Must have cross-threaded, and didn't want to spend $10 on a new cylinder o.O) - Now I'm thinking I'm completely screwed, because I sure as hell can't drive my car right now, and there's no auto parts stores for MIIIIIILES, and then I remember the old trailing arm in my trunk that I just replaced - BINGO! That had a brand new line on it, so I was in business - On to taking off the shield ... After 45 minutes decided my impact gun was just NOT getting them off, so I finally managed to get a pair of vise grips on where I THOUGHT the nut was, and just started tapping it - Eventually it did come out, and by that point I'm thinking it SERIOUSLY can't get any worse ... WRONG AGAIN! Started setting up for the ebrake cables, and everything was going very well, up until the point to where I was completely under the car (Mind you, it's about two feet of clearance from the ground to the bottom of the car, because I have really lame jack stands :-/), and saw this m*****f****** heat shield that OBVIOUSLY has to come off to get the new cables in, and the bolts were just completely CAKED with rust - Even if they were clear, it would be next to impossible to get a good grip on them with a socket without removing the whole damned exhaust pipe - After taking off the one CLEAR bolt, the rest of the shield pretty much flaked away, so there goes any thoughts of re-using it - On to the bolts ... You've GOT to be kidding! Unless you can transform into a Smurf, there's no way in HELL you can even get to two of them, and they are all just corroded beyond recognition - After another hour, and another can of PB, I was able to wrangle all the stupid bolts out (Leaving behind about 4" of knuckle skin in the process), and finally remove the old cables - I am now almost four hours into this, and that was just disassembling ONE SIDE! I had one bright idea, and that was to take the wheel off on the other side, and unload three cans of PB on EVERYTHING, and let it sit while I went to re-assemble the new parts. Running the new ebrake cable was a bit of a bitch, only because of the lack of room to move, and two brackets that HIDE the damned bolts, so you can only get them finger tight, if you hold a socket between your fingers ... Tiring ****, let me tell you! Assembly of the new parts went surprisingly easy, except for those clips that hold the shoes in place - Those took a bit of effort, and several plier changes, but they finally went on, and everything else just fell right into place after that (Although the self adjuster bar kept falling out every time I tried to line everything up) - Okay, one side done, on to the other ... Well, my idea to blast everything with PB helped a lot as far as getting all the bolts out easily, but was not so bright in the fact that I now had to lay in pools of PB to get under to car to do the other cable, and let me just say this: PB hurts like hell in the eyes, and it doesn't taste to great, either! That **** managed to somehow get around my goggles, and invade every crevice of my body that was under the car - After three showers, I STILL smell like damned PB!!! Anyways, the other side was 'slightly' easier to do, but the absolute WORST was trying to get the rubber boots for the ebrake cables to seat correctly in the holes - That took damned near two hours! Only luck, perseverance, and a big-*** flathead finally got them in right, and by this time I have run out of names to call the car and the bolts, and even the squirrels stopped watching me and laughing, so I went about hooking up the other side, did my adjustments, bled the system, and I was good to go ... But now I have a much greater respect for the mechanics that have to go through this on a daily basis!

B_Swapped93

Dude PLS give cliffs I try and be helpful most of the time but I'm not reading all that.


from what I glanced you're fighting with the e-brake cables...just cut them and get new ones seriously they get stuck with the drums/

relentlesstech

LOL - It's not a 'help' post, more of a 'heads-up' for people going to do this on THEIR cars - It was a total cluster-f**k, but I got it done - I figured I'd let others know what to expect :-P

ewilliams1990

Did you release the e-brake to remove the drums?

myEKsedan

iTrader: (1)

^^ i was thinking the same?

B_Swapped93

Ahh I see might want to edit the thread title to "experience with rear disc swap on EJ6"

I did the 5 lug conversion on my integra even that was a pain and I never ran into rust.

P-M-B,93EXsedan

This is one more reason I like disks better

relentlesstech

LOL, my cables were both broken the day I bought the car - My ebrake never worked until now :-D

I'm seriously considering swapping my rear with an Integra, or whatever, just to have discs in the back (Or Si brake swap? Someone told me it could be done)