I'm looking to replace brakes. On Rockauto there are two options: drum and shoe kit with or without wheel cylinder.

What is the wheel cylinder and do I need it?

 

The easiest explanation of how your brakes work is when you press on your brake pedal, the master cylinder on your engine bay firewall side pushes brake fluid out through the brake lines to all four of your brakes- two calipers in front and two brake drums/wheel cylinders in the rear. The brake fluid under pressure forces your brake shoes outward against the inside of the brake drum- which slows the car down. The brake springs attached to the brake shoes pull the shoes back away from the brake drums when you let off the brake pedal. That's a very simplistic answer, but that's how the brakes function.

There is a wheel cylinder in each rear brake on your car. The wheel cylinders are hydraulic units containing seals that hold the brake fluid in each wheel cylinder so they can hold brake pressure without leaking. Basically if the cylinders are not leaking, you do not need to replace them. You additionally do not need to replace the brake drums either unless you've let the rear brake shoes wear through to where they have damaged either of the drums. There is a minimum diameter stamped on most brake drums that tells a brake shop if your drums can be turned on a lathe to smooth out the brake drum surface. I hope this helps.

 

Check the shoes before bothering to order those as well.

I pulled our rear drums off to replace with discs at around 196k miles. Shoes still had life left. That's how little the rear drums do.

 

On the flipside, you do have to check ALL shoes.

My passenger side looked like it still had plenty of life, and even one shoe (each side has two shoes) on the driver side look pretty decent. Its just the other shoe was wearing down so unevenly that while the top half was fine, the bottom half of that shoe had ground itself into the metal backing plate.

https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-...ml#post1426415

They don't do (as) much work (as the front) and if you're gentle, they probably last a long time... unless something goes screwy like in my case.

 

Good info Goobers!

Yeah, always check all pads and shoes. In my case, all 4 shoes had plenty of life left at almost 200k miles. The pads on my new calipers in the rear already show some wear with just 1,000 or so miles.

 

Should have said something, I would have just mailed you my drums I took off mine in July last year for my disc conversion. Looked brand new at 89k

 

Get the most expensive front pads there are. Ceramic is good. You can do those yourself....they are dead simple to do.

I noticed that one side seems to wear more.....thinking of switching the sides if it's possible....maybe from one side to another or something.

As far as rear shoes.......well, they last forever......I let the dealer replace mine at around 100K ......I coulda done it but it's just a tad bit complicated........the old shoes still had some life left in them.......

z

 

Not to steal this thread ,but what disc kit did you use?

 

Get the most expensive front pads? What lol.

stoptech sports are good. If you were happy with OEM get those.

 

Fastbrakes. I don't have a glowing review of the install (they sent the wrong length braided steel lines and instructions were nearly unreadable, having been photo copies so many times) but it's cool, looks nice. I like them, would pay someone else to install it if I did it again.

 

I have the Fastbrakes lines and wish they were just one inch or so longer. They fit, but are tighter than I would like. Were yours just completely wrong?

 

Driver side fit just fine, passenger side was something like 10 inches too short. Nowhere near long enough. They were the same size side to side, but because the hardline terminus is on the driver side that didn't work. Ended up finding a length of hardline from Advance (I think) to bridge the gap from the Honda hardline to the braided line.

They also showed up something like a month after my order got here. It didn't bother me at the time because there was something like a full month before I was going to get a chance to install. Fastbrakes weren't aware it was a problem until an amateur racing team wrote an email to them asking for clarification. I never did hear back from them on an email asking if there was a possibility they had sent the wrong line to me.

It's been 15 months since they went on, I've had a couple small issues with my handbrake. Had the caliper stick on one day after I got to work. I had a light turn red right as I got there, guess I got things hot and when I pulled the handbrake the piston would not retract back into the caliper, had to pull the wheel and caliper off in the parking lot 20 minutes before work and screw the piston back in. Happened one more time but by the time I realised the pads were sticking and started slowing down the act of me pressing the pedal again freed them. I've had that caliper apart to lube/grease slides and pad guides. I keep meaning to replace the caliper but I want to replace it with a like caliper from whoever fastbrakes sourced their calipers from.

 

Lines for the GE must be different than the GD. Ours are the same on both sides.

I used PowerStop calipers and so far, so good. I wish the parking brake was stronger though, but I don't know what could be changed to make it hold better. The brackets don't flex and the cables are working. Holds the car on a slight hill, but not on anything steep.