Ron's Civic and some tips on Civic rear drums

Here's a newer Civic hatch that has some issues:

It originally had a Y7 engine in it, which was replaced with a Y8. The car was bought with the exhaust pulled off. Ron, the new owner wants to use the stock exhaust with a new muffler, so I got started figuring out what was needed to make that happen:

As you can see above, for some reason, the exhaust has been cut off before the socket flange, which was pretty awesome! I didn't have to weld anything together, just get the old part off:

Here's a closeup of the double-wall that Honda uses in many OEM headers:

That helps keep heat in to light off the cat sooner, but you can actually take out the inner layer to open the exhaust up enough to make a significant (but not huge) HP gain. If you want to learn more about how to do that to stock headers, do an interwebs search for "moose mod header."

The next issue is that the passenger rear drum locks up and will not release when the hand-brake is applied and then released. Opening up the rear drums, I found pretty typical wear, but nothing terrible, and certainly nothing that would indicate an cause for the issue.

Here is the passenger side drum brake setup in all it's stock glory:

The only thing I saw was this:

The wheel cylinder boot had come off. Not a huge deal.

Some people freak out about this:

The shoe material being cracked like that is NOT a big deal. Chill out people.

Everything taken off and sprayed down:

 Cleaner is better!

So, time to start cleaning:

In all honesty, I prefer the rear drums on Civics and Integras over the crappy integrated-parking-brake rear discs that everyone is so crazy about. Why? I like functional parking brakes. I can adjust the drums to lock hard and fast much more easily than with the rear discs. Also, they last a heck of a lot longer! It is NOT uncommon for bone stock rear drums to last over 100k miles. So, better functionality and last longer? Yes please. I'll keep mine.

I'll share some tips now on how I keep rear drums working as best as possible. One of the things that make most disc brake setups "better" than drums is friction in the actuating mechanisms. There are a lot more moving parts that rub on each other and that can lead to bad pedal feel and the bad rap that most people give drums.

The biggest source friction in the drum system, IMO, is the shoe pads. No, that isn't being stupid, the pads are where the shoes ride against the back plate of the drum as the brakes are actuated.

This is how they look after getting sprayed off:

Now it's time for cleaning!

I applied a simple wire brush treatment to everything to get off all the brake dust residue that was still stock on everything:

 Here is the other side I havent' cleaned:

 Not too huge a difference since this is a newer Civic with nothing wrong with anything. The adjusting clevis wasn't even frozen, like you will find in many, many older cars that have never had the brakes apart in the entire life of the car.

More dirty stuff:

After wire bushing everything, I sanded down the pads. You should be able to see the difference here:

I also sand down the pads on the back plate to minimize the friction between the two.

Now that you have a slicker surface for the shoes to ride, it's time to apply some proper lube. For this job, there is only one kind you should use: Silicon based caliper grease. This stuff is capable of withstanding very high temperatures and pressures that are associated with brake actuation

Here is a bottle I bought years ago:

I've done dozens of brake jobs and this thing is still half full. It is absolutely worth it to get the thing for under $10.

I apply this stuff on all sliding surfaces, and also on the wheel cylinder boots, as it protects them from drying out and from the abrasive brake dust. Here is what it looks like:

You don't need whole heaps of the stuff. A thin layer between things is all that is needed. I also lube up the e-brake lever pin and the e-brake lever and shoe "spine" since they rub on each other. (You will see the wear marks, and usually some rust where the two meet.)

Carefully put everything back together (yes . . . drums are a pain and take longer, but you have to do it way, way less often!) and then test out the e-brakes to make sure that they work correctly. You'll also need to adjust the fitment. A proper fit is two clicks off of slight drag when spinning the rotor by hand. The tighter you can make it without drag, the better the response will be.

The last step is to apply some anti-seize to the threads on the wheel studs:

I hate not seeing a dab of anti-seize on studs, since it will help you get more consistent torque and also make taking the lug nuts off in the future.

After putting everything back together, the e-brake still locked up the passenger rear, so I investigated  further. I pulled out the center console cover and watched the e-brake mechanism as I pulled the handle. The cable for the passenger side barely moved, while the driver's side moved a normal amount. I climbed under the car and didn't see anything terribly amiss, but can only conclude that there is something wrong with the cable itself, which is very rare to have an issue with, at least in my experience. I'll be replacing that cable soon. 

Busy busy busy, but not entirely productive.

So, last week ended with my birthday on Friday. Thursday I went home to celebrate with my family since some of my friends wanted to take me out on Friday. One of my sisters completely forgot about plans for Thursday, so . . . we ended up having dinner really late. I woke up Friday and did a bunch of yard work. YAY! Best way to start a birthday EVER! Right? Friday afternoon comes around and I get a call from a friend. Her car died in a Walmart parking lot . . . I cancel dinner plans and fix the car. Then I drive 3 hours through nasty thunderstorms to attend a funeral Saturday, crashing at a friend's place in the Philly area. I think I'll just stop there . . . Needless to say, the end of last week was pretty effing crazy. This week has been better, but still not as much has gotten done in the shop as I would prefer. Not that I have been completely idle . . . 

I managed to get the last pieces to the seat pan made up for Mike's CB750! Cutting the rear hoop/collar part out was interesting, at least for the inside radius, as it was just barely too small to make it in one cut since the blade on my bandsaw is too wide. Eventually I'll get a proper upright bandsaw . . . but for now, I think everything has turned out pretty well:

I started bending the seat pan:

Here are the sides before and after bending and tweaking:

I think those will do nicely! I think things are looking good. Mike certainly liked to see this pic:

I've been giving a good amount of thought about how to mount the battery tray and the seat pan so that they are secure and yet easy to take off if needed. One of my many side trips over the past week was to my storage unit, which I re-discovered a box of hardware. This is what it looked like after I dumped it all out of the box:

Much of what was in the box were these doohickies: 

That is a threaded insert. They work sort of like a rivet, but instead of just binding two pieces of sheet together or sheet to something thicker, when the smooth part is pulled up into the splined part, you end up with a secure, threaded boss that is very unlikely to strip out. I am going to use a few of these to bolt the seat pan and battery tray in place. I think I might have enough of them:

Another small thing I did for a customer who sent me an ECU to chip was to correct a dent in the bottom cover of the ECU that was actually pushing on the board!

As you can see, the dent was pushing the plastic protective sheet against the bottom of the board, and it was nearly worn through, which would lead to a short and likely destroying the whole ECU! To fix the issue, I took a punch and flattened the area out, but, look at the pic below for a tip on how to save your fingers!

NEVER hold a punch with your fingers when you are hitting it with something that can break your fingers. There are specific punch/drift holders, but simple vise-grips work just fine, too! Save your fingers and keep on working!

I flattened the dent out enough to not impinge on the board:

Inside:

My friend's new truck needed to have the tailpipe welded on to pass inspection. I don't think it is supposed to sit like this:

I haven't used my MIG welder in a while. Can you tell?

Yes, I cleaned it up a bit. MIG welds NEED good grounds to start the arc when the wire hits the work. 

I blocked the wind with a moving blanket, as I only had Argon:

I am going to get my small bottle exchanged for C25 next week. 

This is under the hood of that truck:

It's got a 5.2L V8 with a 5-speed. It is fairly fun to drive! 

This is something I never like seeing on any vehicle:

Please don't let your terminals get like that? PLEASE?