98 Accord EX Rear Caliper ?

Going to help the neighbor replace the brakes on his Honda this Saturday.
The front brakes are no problem at all. I have a question on the rear that
pertains to the parking brake on the caliper. How difficult is this to
reset? I have looked in the normal places for assistance (AutoZone repair
guides) but they do not list this year. Any advice (or links) appreciated.
It looks like it is a mechanical cam through the caliper.
TIA
GM

 

They might be...Unless you know exactly what you're looking for, and what
you're looking at.

Honda brakes are a bit, well, finicky. Honda typically spends lots of money
on engines and "safety", but then recoups the cost on things like brakes.

If the parking brake is actuated through a lever on top of the caliper,
then the lever must be hard against its post (once piston slack is taken
up) before the cable is adjusted.

If the levers are not against their posts, back off the parking brake cable
adjuster until the levers are against their posts, then take up the parking
brake cable's slack.

Make certain that the clevises can swivel freely. If they are seized, PB
cable adjustments will be incorrect.

Incorrection will also result if the caliper pistons are seized, which is a
distressingly common occurrece.

 

now thats not fair! honda brakes are light and strong. light is good
for handling. light and strong is comparatively expensive. check out
some of that clunking junk ford use some time.

 

And seize/rust amazingly fast compared to, say, Toyota brakes.

I have. Plastic pistons? No thanks.

 

Plastic pistons?!?!

 

Yep. Light-blue plastic. They crumble around the edges.

Wanna buy a Ford?

 

I was shocked when I found my (#2) son's Taurus with a 2.4 L engine had a
six inch clutch.

Mike

 

Are they still pressed on? My '88 and I think a friend's 91 had them
pressed on. They were a BITCH!

 

It was only Accord-based cars that had pressed-on front rotors, and only up
to '97.

 

Ok, I understand so far. When resetting the piston will is screw in cw or
ccw?
TIA
GM

 

have you any idea how much r&d goes into a frod? it's billions. and
98% of it is directed at life [and cost] limitation. their cars are
designed to /just/ last target mileage, then suddenly get prohibitively
expensive to keep. the bean counters think this makes them money
apparently. now, how much market share do frod have again?

 

That's a pretty strong but unsupported statement Jim. Also what has been the
best selling vehicle in the U.S. for the past 25 or so years? Also, don't
recall any Ford with 13 or more possible replacement combinations for the
passenger's side cv axle as with a 94 or so Toyota Camry.

DaveD

 

Clockwise.

http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/Brakes.html#ScrewIt

View the video on that page.

 

Thanks a lot, That really helped!
GM

 

I used to work very closely with the OEM parts industry that supplies
the automakers, both domestic and foreign.

I never personally saw any attempt at design life limitation for the
sake of design life limitation, or attempt at deliberate obsolescence
for the sake of obsolescence.

What I DID see was copious evidence of cost-cutting. Everything was
designed to last just about so long primarily because statistics showed
people didn't keep or drive their cars past a certain point, so there
was no point in putting excess money into a part that would never get
used to the point of failure.

When a five cent reduction in cost on a high-volume parts is a
significant saving, there is a considerable and constant push to find
every possible penny of savings in the cost of building a car.

What I also did see was considerable effort at making *important* parts
(like engines and transmissions, tires, brakes and shocks) last LONGER
before failure. They would make the tiniest changes that you would not
think were worth the effort, all to the end of getting just bit longer
life.

That's why engines and transmissions last 300K now instead of 100K, like
they did in 1970. That's why you no longer have to replace shocks and
tires every 20K miles, like you did in 1970.

 

well, you're right that it's "unsupported", but i have two sources. one
was a buddy who worked there - spent all his time on injector systems.
the other was from uni where a couple of our profs would do consulting
for manufacturers like frod, and they would work on life limitation
projects - an interesting [and difficult] academic problem.

f150. don't understand how that contradicts the above though. the
design is real simple. components are real simple. the only production
challenge is making it cheap [and constantly cheaper] and figuring out
how to make it last so long, but no longer. seriously, it's real hard.
that's where the $'s go. think about this; there's a bunch of real
ancient f150's on the road - the turnip truck type. and there's a bunch
of new ones. but have you seen many 10-year old f150's? there's aren't
many. think about that. and think abut it in the context of life
limitation technology starting to emerge int he late 70's/early 80's.
there's plenty of old frods that pre-date that time. but not many that
post-date it. look around you as you drive.

eh? how's that's relevant???

 

honda, yes. frod, no. talk with a taxi company - they romp through
engines and transmissions like nobody's business, and taxi use is pretty
much ideal service conditioning in that maintenance is guaranteed. the
frod operators here in san francisco replace transmissions every
100-120k miles. engines maybe 150-200k. and thats lazy old v8's,
working at 20% load, not high revving honda working at 60%+.

 

Ah, thanks. Glad to see they got away from THAT!

 

why? it's great for dealing with "warped rotor" syndrome, something
that plagues poorly maintained hondas with bolt-on disks.

 

Because it was a PITA! Not easy for a backyard mechanic to do.

And, as far as warped rotors, there are two things to do to keep rotors
from warping: buy decent rotors, and torque the lug nuts.

I've been doing my own brakes for 6 years, and in all that time I had one
set of rotors warp...and then, somehow they straightened themselves out!
It was a beater Celica I bought for $250, put 30,000 miles on, and used
the cheapest (Chinese) rotors I could get!

When I did the Supra, I got Bendix rotors made in Canada.