How to service your brakes if you live in an area with snow

This series is divided into five sections:
Introduction: Getting started
Part 1 covers tearing things apart and seeing what needs to be done, which for me is usually a lot
Part 2 covers putting it all back together again, clean, lubed and freed-up
Part 3 shows anything specific to the rear brakes that could not be covered in Part 1
Part 4 wraps it up by showing some ancillary checks you might as well do while you're down there getting dirty.
Part 5 More details on cleaning up severely rusted pins, and dealing with shim/rotor contact. (Addendum to Part 2.)
Part 6 What the corresponding parts look like on a 2003 Accord.
Note: All pictures can be clicked on for LARGER versions!

PART 3: The rear discs: Very similar to the fronts, but with a twist (on Integras anyway)

Rear disc brakes are a bit of a problem on a front-wheel-drive car. A dumb idea, if you ask me.

A front-wheel-drive car's front brakes can carry up to 80% of the braking effort. The rear brakes are there mostly to stabilize the rear of the vehicle while it slows to a stop. If you've got drum brakes in the rear, you're on easy street. Drums last for ages, require little maintenance and are not subject to weather the way discs are. Rear discs on a FWD car never quite get heated up enough to burn off the moisture that collects, and since they are at the rear, any water on the car tends to migrate rearwards and on to them.

Rear disc brakes rust and seize VERY quickly. On top of that, the Integra's rear discs also incorporate a parking brake mechanism, which is prone to its own corrosion and seizure problems.

Unfortunately, "4-wheel disc brakes" sounds so, well, sexy. It evokes images of performance and race cars, so they have a high "brag-factor". Honda felt compelled to install rear discs on various models, I think because of what they figured the target market was expecting. The Integra and Civic are based on the same platform, share many parts, but one has rear discs and one (usually) has drums. The reason? Marketing. Nothing more.

What we're covering on this page is the differences between front and rear systems. Most of that will center around the parking brake mechanism. The Passport, and some Accord-based vehicles will have a tiny drum brake inside the rotor that serves as the parking brake (officially called "drum-in-hat"), which means the caliper has no parking brake mechanism. Servicing is a bit easier on those models.

Without further ado, we proceed...

There is a sheet-metal cover that protects the rear caliper from road splash. It's held on by two 10mm bolts. The assembly being shown here is the right-rear wheel, and the wrench is in the process of removing the front-most bolt. These are often covered in sand, so a quick whisk with a wire brush will expose the bolt head a bit more. The other bolt is behind the middle of the cover, pointing towards the center of the car, pretty much in line with the suspension spring. The arrow gives the approximate location. When you reinstall these bolts, they only need to be snug; don't reef them down or you will strip the threads! 7 ft-lbs is fine; they won't come loose.

This pic shows things a bit better. I'm removing the cover after having removed the two bolts. Whatever you do, DON'T leave the cover uninstalled when you're finished. Your parking brake mechanism need this cover to be there for it, like a good spouse.

Remove the two 12mm bolts to take the caliper off, just like on the front caliper. Remember how earlier I mentioned that 6-point wrench? That's because the LOWER bolt on the rear calipers tends to stick something awful unless they are removed twice per year. Use of a run-of-the-mill 12-pointer will run the risk of rounding off the bolt head. And due to the hydraulic line that's in the way, you can't get a socket on to it.

To place the caliper out of the way, it is not necessary to hang it like the fronts, just move it aside and rest it on the suspension arm.

Once you get the pads and the shims off, you may be greeted by a sight like this...Mmmm, crunchy. Dig out that emery cloth again!

The corrugated pin boots on the rear brakes are slightly different from the fronts. The part of the boot that clips on to the mount bracket goes INSIDE the bore, not OUTSIDE like the fronts did. This means the groove is INTERNAL, and is hard to clean. I use an automotive "dentist's pick" like the one shown here to try to scrape the groove out. It's maybe 8" long and has an L-bend in the other end. The L-end is used to scrape the rust out of the groove as much as possible. Use your bendy drinking straw to blow out the dust.

If you do not make 100% certain that the boot is fully seated in its groove, water will get in again and cause rust and seizure. A crude drawing illustrating that phenomenon is here. And a more involved method of cleaning and reseating is here.

On top of the caliper is the famous parking brake linkage. If your parking brake isn't what it used to be, it's probably because the cable end is seized to the clevis, and can't pivot when you pull up on the lever. The only way to prevent seizure is to slather the linkage at the location of the arrow with anti-seize every time you work on it.

Try to wiggle the cable end like this. If it won't swivel, its seized. Use a set of Channel-Locks or other wrench, and forcibly wiggle it until it moves. Then apply some anti-seize and wiggle some more unitl it's nice and loose. Take care not to damage the parking brake weather seal under the linkage, or the rubber bellows on the brake cable! Notice the remains of copper grease on the mechanism here. I'll add more before I close up shop in there. Slather that grease on, but keep it away from the pads!!!

One continual question is how do I get the piston back in again? The picture below should help. Hooded by shadow, you can just see the cross-groove in the piston face. The brake pad is shown laid flat in front of that, so you can see the pin in the back of it. One of the grooves has to line up with the pin before the caliper will go over the pads. To turn the piston, I find the best thing is the very biggest flat-blade screwdriver you can find. The one I use is over a foot long. The pistons turn clockwise to go in, regardless of which side of the car they're on. Don't worry about turning it in too far: When it's bottomed out, it will just keep turning in place. You won't damage anything.

One important note: The piston may turn with a fair amount of friction, but should still move with relative ease. If you have to exert superhuman force to get the piston to budge, the caliper is due for a replacement. Rebuilding these things is not within the scope of most home mechanics, although you can buy the parts to do it from Honda, for most cars.

So how hard should you need to twist to turn the piston? Here is a 550kB WMV video. It's not the greatest quality, but serves the purpose. That's me turning the great big screwdriver (...with one hand. The other hand was operating the camera).

And that's it! Prep and lube everything in the same way you did the fronts, put it all back together, and you're done.

Go to Part 4.