I finally started taking apart the LCA and rear shock/spring off the rear trailling arm and it appears that allt he bolts/bushings are rusted/seized together.

even by hand, we were able to strip off the HEAD off the bolt for the LCA. after that we noticed the bushing is stuck onto the bolt and well looking at the rest of the trailing arm, everything is rusted to ****.

now I am thinking of just using my existing trailing arm, taking nothing apart except for taking out my stock drums and putting on the disb/hub.

I have read elsewhere that it is possible, but has anyone done this themselves?

Is it advisable to do this? or did I just waste my money on purchasing the rear trailing arm assembly?

*i hope the caliper is not seized*

 

I swapped the entire assembly.........but I put a new eurathane bushing in it befor einstalling it.........or did I read this wrong and what you are saying is you can't get your old one off the car becasue of what you said?

 

I bought the entire trailing arm assembly with LCA and complete rear shock/spring assembled boltd to the trailing arm.

I started taking the shock/spring off - it worked
but the LCA bolt screwed up... and then inspected the rest of the trailing arm assembly and concluded that all those bushings are of no use.

I currently can't afford to replace all the bushings and am also in no rush to do so - I won't mind tracking the car for a few more years before replacing all bushings.

I am just wondering if anyone out there have simply taken off their stock drums and replaced it with the disc/hub. if so if you have encountered any problems I should be noted of.

I heard the hex/torx bolts are a bitch - stripped in the process.

I don't have air tools at home, would it be advised to use air tools upon assembly? or is it better to go by hand?

any more problems?

 

Soak Soak Soak in PB Blaster and apply heat. - Drill if nessesary

 

You never want to loosen a fastener by the bolt head, always torque/loosen by the nut, unless its one of those nuts that are tack welded onto the other side, which i think the inner and outer rear LCA nuts are like.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by chrisw85 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You never want to loosen a fastener by the bolt head</TD></TR></TABLE>

How should they come out then? Magic?

 

not not really, thats what the bolt monster is for.

But you know what I'm talking about, I always tighten the nut-side and not tighten on the bolt head, rather I use another wrench to 'hold' the bolt head in place until there is enough torque to prevent the assembly from slipping while torquing the nut. Think of it as a torsion bar, if you hold the nut instead and tighten on the head, then you are trying to twist a long 'bar;' where is the force/torque going? I hope this makes sense. Now this is different for situations where the nut is tack welded.

 

Not meaning to threadjack, but what the hell do you do when those nuts that are tack welded on the inside rust off? I encountered this problem replacing my front LCA. I ended up having to drill a bigger hole right under nut so I could get my finger in there and hold it while I tightened it. What am I going to have to do to get it back on?

 

I basically just did what you did, except (not to boast) I have worked on hundreds of old Honda rear suspensions, most of them have this problem w/ the seized bolts/metal sleeves on the bushings. Usually the bolts that will break are the outer lower control arm to trailing arm bushings because of their location, basically they are bombarded w/ dirt/salt/water/contaminents. The problem is the bolts have "flutes" cut into them. This may be an attempt to prevent a complete 100% contact surface between the bolt and the bushings, however what ususally happens is the water/contaminents gets into the area between the head of the bolt and sits in the flutes and rusts them solid to the bushing sleeves. Then coupled w/ the fact that your bushings are probably shot and dry rotted, you go to turn the bolt and either it is seized enough to the welded nut on the back or the bushing is not so rotted and the bolt head breaks. Or the bushing rips apart and the sleeve comes w/ the bolt and this is probably the best situation because now you can at least take the remaining part of the bolt out w/ out too much trouble.

Here is what happened and what I did to my rear trailing arms. I have a 90 hatch dx and am attempting to put on junkyard 90 crx si stock disc brake trailing arms. I want to tear them completely down to powdercoat and put back w/ all new hardware.

The lower control arm to trailing arm bolts I assume are ususally always seized and so therefore I started by dousing them w/ pb blaster for a couple of days, respray as necessary. Then heat the end of the bolt, the part sticking out of the tack welded nut until it is red, may take a while but you want it as hot as possible. Try and use an impact gun on the end, but don't go overboard, if you don't see the other end moving, STOP, otherwise your situation will be much more difficult. If it isn't moving, keep heating, then heat the bushing area, the bushing will catch fire, expect this, however don't stop heating, keep heating that until you can start to see the metal sleeve. If all else fails, buy a cut off tool and cut the bushing sleeves/bolts together and get the arm out. But then you have to heat up the nut and just work out the remaining part of the bolt. This should be easy. Remember heat and pb blaster are your friends, be patient. I removed all the bracketry for the emergency brake lines/brake fluid lines and every 12mm bolt broke on me, so I basically had to cut slots into the ends of the bolts and heat them and unscrew them with a flat head screwdriver. Another thing you may want is a very good set of assorted vice grips, come in handy many times doing this work. It is time consuming it took me a couple of hours over two days inbetween classes to completely tear down both sides.

On another note, I was going to attempt to remove the spingle/hub mount. It does have 4 large torx screws in the rear of the trailing arm, however because of their location, the only way to remove these if they are seized, which mine were would be to drill them out, and then w/ luck re-tap the spindle/hub mount. If you look up honda parts availability, you will notice that the spindle/hub mount cannot be bought separately, only with the entire trailing arm together. So i basically gave up on that and figured that I'd just keep those on the trailing arms when I have them powdercoated together. So if your intentions were to use your stock trailing arms with the spindle/hub mount from the disc brake trailing arms and you brake them, you sol and you'd have been better off buying brand new si trailing arms for roughly 260$ a side. Good luck. Hope I may have been of some help, any further questions you can shoot my way, I know I'm not alone on the suspension experience on this board but I will take the time to explain things others may tell you to search for.

 

Hondacivic90ed - THANKS A LOT for your explanation!

i was told to do as you had, strip the TA all down and powerder coat it and install all new bushings... alas, it's the $ i cannot invest in at the moment.

I was told to purchase all the torx screws regardless and I will do that tomorrow morning and chat with some technicians at honda... if they feel it is possible and there is a good chance for me to go that route then in the afternoon I will try to take the hub/disc apart.

I'm sure ur explanation will help a lot of others!!!

 

yes you can leave the stock trailing arm on and just change the brake parts. trailing arms are the same. the torx bolts are a bitch but you can drill out the center of the bolt from the wheel side of the asembly and the heat from drilling will make them easier to get out.

 

yes basically the trailing arms are identical, however for those of us on here that are fanatics when it comes to details, the trailing arms that had disc brakes installed on them from the factory have provisions designed into them that allow a caliper guard that bolts into a bracket and a hole w/ a welded nut on the trailing arm. For most people, (myself included) this will not matter as I am puttin on 11" rotors and the caliper guard wouldn't fit anyway. Just noting a small difference.

 

Hondacivic90ed and all,

Final exams are done. Finally went back to work on the rear discs.

1. finally got the FREAKING rotors out - had to drill the bitch out of it (those damn screws holding the rotors were badass)

2. took out all 4 bolts holding the brake shield in place - but did not want to tamper w/ the "bearing" (is it the wheel bearing?) part THUS cannot take the dust shield out (it's currently acting like a "dust shield spinner"...

3. HOW THE HELL do i get the torx bolt out? I know I can try drilling those torx bolts from the "wheel side" (as in outside in towards the car) however I cannot take out the dust shield (the dust shield bolts are off as said in point #2 above)... suggestions?!?

thanks in advance.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by chrisw85 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You never want to loosen a fastener by the bolt head, always torque/loosen by the nut, unless its one of those nuts that are tack welded onto the other side, which i think the inner and outer rear LCA nuts are like.</TD></TR></TABLE>

ALL the rear suspension bolts have welded nuts. you have not choice but to torque at the head.

the only bolt i can think of that has a free nut is the front lower shock fork bolt.

 

Hey, Type V! I've got some updates regarding what we were trying to do. I hope school's been cool. Anyway...

The T50 TORX Head Flange Bolts used for the Rear Spindles (92-00 Civic or Compatible) are the same thread pitch as the bolts connecting your Suspension Arms. In fact, they are the same thread pitch as the bolts that hold the Rear Caliper Bracket to the mounting points on the Spindle. *** There is no marking for Stress Grade on the T50 TORX Bolts *** Meaning, I cannot attest as to whether using one or the other is a safe replacement...

Your best bet is to hope that you salvage at least 8 of the 16 bolts you have (from your car & the spare arms). Until someone else can confirm them (or something else) as an adequate replacement. The Suspension Arm Bolts are too long and not fully threaded, and the Caliper Bracket Mounting Bolts *might* be a little too long, even with a washer, to leave space for the Mudguard...

After stripping the donor TAs to just the arm and Spindle, I laid the arms down, with the Spindle pointing upward (the TA Bushing will tilt things a little). I dripped 3-in-1 in the exposed holes of the Torx Bolts, and let things soak. What you want to see is the level of oil going down, and not just dripping down the face of the spindle, so that it's soaking into the threading. Keep doing this for a day or two, checking for refills (I had the luxury of taking my own long-*** time).

When you're finally sick of waiting, bust out your 2' breaker bar, the extension, and the T50 socket, and go VERY SLOWLY. I was able to separate both sides using a smaller bar (a 1.5' Torque wrench). They were around 60 ft-lb to break loose, and were threaded with Loctite Blue.

How badly stripped are your Torx Bolts? Have you managed to get them out yet? I wish I could help you with that, but I don't know...

But as far as removing your current car's Rear Drum Spindle, you'll probably have a harder time removing the bolts, as you'll have less leverage unless you can get your car really high. After breaking it loose, you can use a regular ratchet. Just remember things rarely ever go as planned, so preparation is key.

Regarding your #2, I was wondering why you haven't been able to remove the Rear Hub/Bearing Assembly? It's a self-contained unit, unlike the front, and "simply" (but not always easily) slides off of the spindle after the staked Hub Nut and Washer are removed. In fact, you don't even need to separate the Rotor from the Hub to do this. Are you having problems removing the Hub Nut, or is your Hub/Bearing assembly fused to the Spindle? I have encountered and overcome both problems, so just hollar if you need more info.

Anyway, GL with this and school. Let us know how things are.
JasonGhostz