A little more than a week ago, something just didn’t feel right with the Civic. It felt like something was dragging—not really bad, just enough to be felt. The car had sat through a big rain, so all of the rotors were rusty. We decided to keep an eye on things.
A day or so later (basically about five miles later), the car didn’t feel any better. There was still some rust on the outside of the left-rear brake rotor, so that’s where we started to look.
We jacked up the car on Saturday and gave that wheel a spin. Yeah, something was dragging. Pulled the pads on that side and noticed that the piston’s O-ring was torn. The pads were worn at a funny angle, too.
We decided to replace the rear calipers. One store in town had rebuilt calipers in stock, so we grabbed one. No one had decent pads, but we had an extra set of new pads leftover from another Civic—fortunately the 2000 Civic Si shares pads with this car.
Went to attach the brake line to the left-rear caliper, and something wasn’t right. Upon further investigation, looked like the threads on our new caliper were buggered-up.
That was the only left-side caliper they had on hand, so we had to wait until Wednesday to get another one. Got the new caliper, and it went on the car with no drama.
When we started the job on the right side of the car, however, there was a little drama: One of the bolts that goes into one of the slider pins was missing (!!!!!!!). We picked up a new hardware kit, and in theory everything will be back together tomorrow. (We stopped for dinner.)
Quick update: The car now has two new rear calipers and the system is bled. We found a screw in one of the tires, so the car is now on some different wheels.
View all comments on the GRM forums
You'll need to log in to post.
