WORKING ON FRONT BRAKES
1 Here is the complete nearside front brake. The discs and pads aren’t that old with smooth discs and plenty of meat on the pads, and it’s a shame to renew them – they may well end up being cleaned-up and given away rather than just being binned!
2 The first job is to remove the two crosshead screws that secure the brake disc to the hub. These had been put in pretty tight and it was soon obvious that I wasn’t going to get these out without a fight. Without an impact driver I was just thinking of drilling them out…
3 …however, I had a brainwave. I used a crosshead screw bit in a socket on a long extension bar, with some self-locking grips on the knurled bit of the shaft. Turning the whole lot while clouting the end of the grips with a steel hammer got all four screws shifting on both sides of the car – including the rear screws later. Do whatever works!
4 With those screws loose, I could then get the calipers off. These are secured with 13mm thread-locked bolts going into sliders with 17mm heads, so you need to hold that still with a slim 17mm open-ended spanner while undoing the 13mm bolt. You can re-use the old bolt with thread-lock applied.
5 The caliper can now come off, but before you do that, use a big screwdriver to see if the pistons can be forced back – if not, the piston may be seized. If the pads are worn much more on one side that’s a good indicator that the piston might be seizing. Our calipers were perfect however – the original 2006 Trw-made originals.
6 Honda used this circular anti-rattle 6 shim on the end of the caliper piston and it has three internal prongs to locate it on the piston. They are made of stainless steel so won’t rust but it’s still a very good idea to remove it, give it a good clean up and refit it before bolting the caliper back on.
7 Like many cars, including GM stuff, Honda use stainless steel shims that the pads locate into. The idea is that the stainless shims won’t corrode and the pads won’t seize, but the cast iron caliper brackets still rust under the shim, forcing them outwards. Our pads were a bit sticky.
8 Now undo the caliper bracket from the hub. They are 17mm bolts that need to be torqued up to 108Nm on reassembly. A spot of thread-locking fluid isn’t a bad plan either. However, Honda do not advise renewing the bolts, meaning they are not ‘one-time use’ types. Good news.
9 Once removed, these anti-rattle shims just unclipped. They can be carefully cleaned-up with a narrow copper wire brush to get them squeaky clean again and ready for re-use. Some brake pad kits come with new ones, but to be honest, we’ve never needed to replace them unless missing.
10 The front hub will need a good cleanup with a wire brush and emery paper, and that’s made a bit more difficult because there are studs and wheel nuts rather than the more common wheel bolts. A narrow wire brush is best – it needs to be perfect to ensure a flat disc mounting face.
11 The caliper retaining bracket also needs to be cleaned-up. Ours were not too bad for 13 years old – after wire brushing, fit the stainless shims and see how easily the pads fit. Really rusty ones will need cleaning with a coarse file if the shims are to fit well enough to allow pad movement.
12 Our new discs from GSF are by Drivetec, a brand we’ve used many times before. Some brake discs come with a light paint finish to protect them and this coating comes off the first time you use the brakes. These however have an oil film that needs washing off with brake cleaner.
13 The old and new discs. We reckon these discs have only been on for less than a year – while the inner bells are quite rusty, the actual braking surfaces are perfect with no wear ridge. It would be a pity to throw them away – however, we suspect they’ll be recycled before long.
14 Here are the new front and rear pads we’ll be fitting. Made by Bendix, they’re about as good as you can get for standard road brake pads. Bendix invented the first ever fully electronic and computerised ABS system back in 1971 so we guess they know what they’re doing.
15 Once the hub is fully cleaned up, lightly smear Ceratec brake grease on the front hub. This is to stop corrosion between the hub and disc that might eventually cause the disc to run out of true and introduce brake vibration. Keep the stuff away from the wheel studs; they must be dry.
16 The new front disc can now be fitted with the two crosshead screws we struggled with earlier. You can order new screws from Honda and they won’t cost much – but grease the threads, and fit them little more than finger tight so that they come out again easily next time.
17 Once the caliper carriers are cleaned up, lightly coat them just here with Ceratec before fitting the shims. Do them now and not when they are bolted on, in order to eliminate the risk of getting brake grease on the discs themselves. Now bolt them back onto the front hubs.
18 With that, the caliper carrier bolts are torqued up to 108Nm on the front brakes, and 55Nm on the rears. You can use some thread lock on these bolts if you wish, but it’s not essential as there was none added at the factory. Use a torque wrench rather than guessing!
19 The new brake pads are now fitted like this. Note that the inner pad has a strange metal prong at the top to stop the pad from moving. This pad with the prong only fits on the inside as the caliper carrier, so doesn’t allow it to sit correctly on the outside. Torque the 13mm bolts up to 35Nm.
20 And here is the complete nearside brake, with new disc and pads properly fitted and hopefully good for another few years and 30,000 miles or more. By stripping and cleaning everything and the use of Ceratec, we’ve avoided future brake binding with overheated and ruined calipers.