jdmjunkieXL

can someone just go through a quick overview on how to replace a wheel cylinder on a ek, dosnt have to go into detail thanks in advance

jdmjunkieXL

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1) Remove wheel
2) Remove outer drum - if it hasn't been taken off in awhile it'll be a pain in the *** to take it off - nothing holds it on, you just need repeated strikes with a hammer to jar it loose. There should be a screw hole on it (of which size i forgot), if you put a screw in there and screw it in, it'll push the drum out, allowing you to remove it easier.
3) Once the drum is removed, I'm going to assume you've never taken apart a drum before because of how you're asking this. My heavy recommendation of you is to take a picture of the inside from every angle - if you've never seen a drum setup before it can be rather confusing.
4) Take off the spring holding the two shoes together (on the bottom)
5) Remove the spring connecting the front shoe to the auto adjuster
6) As you can see there's a screw holding each shoe in, and in between them, that is the wheel cylinder.
7) Unscrew the shoe holders, so the shoes can be removed, I forgot whether you can leave them on, but it doesn't really matter.
8) Remove the brake line from the wheel cylinder (it doesn't matter if it's closed, we're going to bleed it later).
9) The wheel cylinder is held on by I believe 2 screws in the back, it comes out rather easily, put the new one on and reconnect the wheel cylinder.
10) Put the shoes back on loosely and screw them into place
11) Seat the tops of the shoes inside the "pistons" of the wheel cylinder
12) connect the bottom spring that holds the shoes together (PS: Your e-brake cable should be there, it's not needed to remove that, so don't worry about it) If you removed the shoe all together, connect the e-brake cable now, it follow a channel along the back of the shoe and slides into the fork
13) Now this is where things get tricky, the shoes are going to want to pop out on the outsides, you have to hold that **** in there (C clamps work well to do this if you have them).
14) You need to slide in toe adjust adjuster, spindle, gear, and make sure it's sitting perfectly between both shoes - each end of the fork has to be within the catch on each shoe so it might be a bit tricky. If you've never done it before you'll have to remove one of the shoes to get it right.
15) The main goal here is to push the forward shoe "in" (towards the rear of the car) so that is is connected by the bottom spring, and the fork/spindle connects the two shoes, and that it sits in the wheel cylinder.
16) After it's in there you need to adjust it, the goal is that the shoe setup is centered, then use the auto adjuster to push the shoes out to a certain point.
17) The certain point is determined when the shoes are centered, you want the shoe to slide on, but you want to feel the shoes drag against it.
18) Once the wheel drum is on, time to bleed the brakes

That's sorta the best I can come up with not having done it in a year while watching TV.

It may make absolutely no sense now, because you haven't seen it yet.

Once you get the wheel and more importantly the drum off, it'll make a ****-ton more sense.

I'm sorry if that little writeup i made wasn't 100% helpful, but once you get it all apart, study the pieces, and you'll see how it works, from there it's just trying to hold it all together (it's sort of like an arch, without the keystone, it collapses, but with this, they all need to be in place for it not to fall apart).

Basically you have a few components here:
2 shoes
1 spindle (it may go into two pieces IIRC)
1 wheel cylinder
1 spring small spring
1 medium spring
1 long spring

Basis of functionality:
When you depress the brake pedal, the wheel cylinder fills with fluid. It then pushes the shoes outward where they rub on the drum, this is what slows the car down.

Basis of Assembly:
- The two shoes go on the outside, and are held in place by a pin type thing (you press in and push)
- The tops of the shoes go into the notches on the wheel cylinder
- The small spring connects the bottom of the shoes together
- The spindle goes between the shoes (from one to the other), but above the middle (right under the wheel cylinder). The gear goes towards the front of the car, and each has a place on the shoe where it's held in place
- The long spring goes from the bottom of the forward shoe up to the auto adjuster which sits in the shoe, and has a clip that pushes the gear. This is so when they (the shoes) have too much room between the wall of the drum, it pulls down on the spring, this spins the gear on the spindle pushing the shoes out further - that's why they're "self adjusting"
- The medium spring which connects the shoes together about 3/4 of the way up, which holds them to the wheel cylinder tightly

Once you have the drum off this will make a lot more sense.

Here's my method of assembly, in case you want to follow it, this will make more sense once you've seen the setup:
- Put the rear shoe in, wheel cylinder in, and use the pin to hold the shoe there
- Connect the spring connecting the bottoms of the shoes to it, and connect it to the other one - let the front one dangle
- Slide the spindle in, so the gear is towards the front of the car
- Attach the mid-way spring that connects the two shoes to the rear spring
- Now the concept here is to flp the front shoe up so that everything fits, and that means you need to bring it up, channel the e-brake cable if necessary so that it can connect, slide it into the fork of the spindle, and into the notch of the wheel cylinder.
- Once that's all done you need to hold that **** in there (or it'll want to pop the hell out) while you get the other pin and pin the front one in.
- Then you attach the mid-way spring, seat the auto adjuster, and attach the logn spring.
- Then you got the whole assembly toether, now you center it, to do this, you try to get it so that the pistons on each end of the wheel cylinder are sticking out the same amount, and then you want ot move it around so the center setup is based around the hub. As for the e-brake cable, make sure you clipped it to the fork on the shoe.
- You can then slide the drum on. If it slides on too easy, then you need to push the shoes out some, to do this just stick a screw driver in there (flathead) and spin the gear so it pushes the shoes out. Don't forget: Your goal is to get it so it slides on with SOME resistance (it drags). Once that's on you're golden.
- Then you need to bleed the brakes, since you disconnected the wheel cylinder (you don't need to d/c the wheel cylinder to only replace the shoes, but this is the equivalence of replacing the caliper if they were disk)
- The bleeder valve is on the back of the drum, it's on the wheel cylinder, but it comes through the back. This is where a ratching closed ended wrench comes in handy: Open it up two turns, have somebody press it twice and hold. Then close it, have them release the pedal, loosen it two turns, have somebody pump it 2 or 3x, and hold, then close it. That should be all you need to get the air out of the cylinder. Then go to your brake reservoir and make sure it's at the fill marker.

Then you should be golden.

Equivalency to disk brakes:
Drums & disks
shoes = pads
wheel cylinder = piston in caliper
auto adjuster = push harder on the pedal

Sorry if my babbling isn't getting through to you - feel free to IM me if you have any questions, or if you want to help other people that would search (not that that would ever happen), feel free to post here and then IM me that you posted, I'd be more than happy to help - especially since I absolutely love drum brakes.

Once you get that drum cover off, (which is a HUGE pain in the *** in and of itself, luckily honda provided us with screw threads to screw a screw in there and push it off) everything will make a lot more sense.

Feel free to ask for clarification on anything or additional help.

PS: If you don't do it right, you may need to take that cover back off to re-adjust them, if you really don't trust yourself, you should take it to a shop where they've been doing it for awhile. No damage can really come of it though, the only bad thing that's ever happened to me was I let a shoe slip and where it slides into the notch on the wheel cylinder it missed and hit the boot on the side, tearing it - I needed a new wheel cylinder.

Hope that helps ya some.

I really should think of writing an FAQ for this, though my brakes don't need changing so I wouldn't have all the proper specs, hrm?