Hi, Gang!

43110-SR3-A01 and 43120-SR3-A01 are the Honda catalog part numbers for these plates.

I'm absolutely baffled as to how these parts -- even for a car this old -- are so hard to find. They fit all '92-'95 5th Generation Civics, and a couple of Del Sol model years, too, I believe. Those cars must be on the streets and in salvage yards in the tens of thousands. None of my many 'go-to' OEM online stores have these, but one seller among them who I've liked using had them pop up without the 'Discontinued. Part no longer available' notice I got everywhere else. After site glitches and a delay of a few days, my inquiries and order were followed by an e-mail titled 'Not Available'. How pathetic is it that I was like a kid on Christmas morning at first, and then got angry enough to want to travel to the seller and punch someone in the face? ; ]

I didn't want aftermarket, which is a good thing considering the SEO-driven searches that yield 4,521,033 'results' "...in about 0.81 seconds" that are practically useless and would require days to pore over. I can't find these on Amazon, in any of the big parts stores, or even on eBay -- not even aftermarket versions. It seems like I'm chasing a unicorn, but these MUST be out there somewhere. Does anyone know of a collector and seller of Honda parts who has a treasure trove of goodies that might contain these? Does any member here have these?

Thank You in advance for any help with this. Peace! Happy Holidays to all!

Sincerely,
Bill

 

Regardless of vehicle popularity, part popularity is far more important.

In my 22 years as a technician,Ive never had to replace a backing plate on a Civic or know anyone in my profession whos had to. So that indicates to me that those parts are a low demand item, which is gonna make them hard to find 25-30 years later.

Your best online bet is LKQ as they seem to have bought up a lot of salvage yards across the US. More than likely you're gonna have to but a whole rear assembly of some sort from them,but your options are limited.

Give them a call.

 

Thank You for your prompt reply, DCFIVER!

My friend -- who's a fine mechanic and an overworked maintenance guy in general -- said the same thing about perhaps needing to buy a stub axle assembly or other intact series of components. He mentioned that before I had my car towed to his brother's shop, and after we couldn't immediately diagnose and free the locked-up driver's side rear wheel that caused my car to sit at my workplace for a week. It took him an hour-and-a-half to free the wheel with a shop torch and tools. It froze again the next day, even farther away. After a week of my car sitting in a well-lit parking lot my nephew stopped by from about 40 miles away to assist me and we got it rolling again. It now sits on the lot of the aforementioned shop during this 'Winter Storm Ezekiel', awaiting parts.

My buddy helped selflessly as usual in a crisis moment, and is as busy as I hinted. His passing thought was that the backing plates were basically going to be unusable, but my nephew didn't think they seemed that bad. I also thought that the one in question was fairly solid if very rusty and a bit banged up. 25 years and almost 300,000 miles in the Northeast paints the picture. My long-winded point is that I wanted these new OEM plates so that I could do the job thoroughly, but I may just get the brake components and hope that the backing plates have life left in them.

Interestingly, there's an LKQ-acquired yard in this area that was called Broadway for years. The last experience that I can remember having with them wasn't great, for as my friend said, they no longer have any interest in parting out on the individual item basis, as they can get a lot more for entire assemblies that take little if any more time to dismantle than a nickel-and-dime component requires to pull. The other problem is that many salvage yards now have a practice of scrapping any 'car'casses that have been taking up space for ten years and still have meat on the bones.

I respect your professional perspective, and I appreciate your advice, but my take on the availability of these backing plates is that they appeared in catalogs with prices, so they were presumably put out in the field as stock. Maybe not in the tens of thousands like the cars themselves were, as you alluded, but in a quantity to accommodate what need the engineers thought might be realistic, based on their confidence in the manufacturing quality. Also, whatever is or was available was probably stocked more than 25 years ago and not many times since. Whatever the demand, it seems that these were needed and sold, if indeed they were ever actually stocked as replacement parts. It's a mystery, in light of the overwhelming number of backing plates available for GM and other makes, both OEM and aftermarket. Maybe these Honda plates were simply bulletproof. Yes -- I overthink stuff.

I'm gong to search some more and keep an eye on this thread for replies. Thanks again, DCFIVER! Happy Wrenching, and Happy Holidays! Sorry for the lengthy reply. Peace! *<] : )