7th Gen Tourer Rear Brake Overhaul

First a bit of background:

I’d noticed my rear left brake was intermittently getting hot. Sometimes stinking hot, sometimes just warm. Either way, not right. Initially I removed the calliper and found everything to be superficially in order. Upon refitting the problem went away, but after about a month it returned.

I’ve not the time or inclination to keep tickling the problem, I wanted to bottom it in one go and (hopefully!) not have to revisit it during my ownership. Various threads on TA suggest replacement of flexi hose and / or calliper is the best resolution. Where I can, I like to use genuine parts but the cost of new Honda callipers is prohibitive. Looking round, the price of reconditioned units varies considerably. I’d have liked to have got them from Bigg Red, as several members say they do good work, but they had none on the shelf and I’ve not the luxury of time to have them do mine and send them back.

In the end I decided to rebuild them myself.
In doing this there is a small cost saving, but more than that I thought I might learn something along the way.

My shopping list for each side included the following:

Honda flexi hose P/N HO1466SED000 - Holdcroft

Budweg Piston P/N BCP3830 - Brakes International
Budweg Seal Kit P/N BCK3832 Seal kit - www.brakesint.co.uk
Bremtech Fitting Kit P/N BCF1319 – Tel 01706 666999

I had silicon, red and copper grease, brake fluid etc in the garage already.




What follows is what I did. I’m not suggesting it’s the right way, or best way, but I thought I’d share my experience lest it help someone else. This DIY only covers the faulty side, but I got the parts to do left and right.

The afternoon before I planned to do the work I got the car up on stands, took the wheel off and gave the parts due for removal a bit of a wire brushing and a dose of penetrating oil (avoiding the friction surfaces, which are relatively new and I planned to re-use!)



Next day the overhaul began…

This picture shows the location of the parts and their re-fitting torques.




Before touching the wheel end I fitted a sealing cap to the master cylinder to try and minimise any fluid loss when the rear hose was removed.




Unless you want a brake fluid stain on your drive, have a shallow cardboard box filled with paper to hand to act as a drip tray.

Next separate the hose from the union. This was very tricky. The union is both very soft and very tight. The flats soon started rounding off. Even a tickle with the blow lamp didn’t help. In the end I had to resort to pipe grips to shift it ☹

Remove the clip securing the hose to the fixing bracket –this can be done later, but is easier when still attached to the car.




Then remove the two bolts (12mm socket) holding the hose fixing bracket in place (shouldn’t really be necessary, but the hose was rusted into the bracket!).

I removed the support bracket half way along the hose complete (12mm socket), as the hose fixing bolt was rusted tight and the whole thing just started bending.

Using a 17mm and a 12mm spanner crack the calliper-to-slide retaining bolts. They need not be removed at this stage, but they’re tight and it’s easier to do with the ***embly supported by the car than on the bench.




Using a 14mm socket undo and remove the carrier-to-hub retaining bolts. The brake ***embly should now be free. It may take a bit of wrestling to release if your pads are stuck hard on, or there’s a lip on your disc.

Watching out for the fluid contained in the calliper leaking everywhere, transfer the ***embly to somewhere clean.




Remove the banjo bolt attaching the flexi hose (14mm), noting the orientation of the hose relative to the calliper body. The sealing washers should be renewed, even if reusing the old hose. My Honda hoses came complete with washers.

Remove the pads, noting the location and relative orientation of any shims (their ought to be two inner shims against the piston and one outer shim against the calliper fingers), the pad spring and the position of the inner pad wear indicator. Clean all the old grease and grime off and put to one side ready for reassembly.

Working on the carrier, remove the bolts loosened whilst on the car and the two halves of the ***embly will separate.

Carefully release one lip of the carrier slide bellows seals with a small screw driver and withdraw the slides from their bores, noting that one is plain round and the other has flats machined down its length (my pattern parts have flats down both slides –time will tell if this makes any difference).




My slides looked to be in reasonable corrosion free condition, though the plating on the plain slide had worn through in places.

Clean up carefully (if reusing) and put to one side. Clean the bores of the carrier with a rolled up rag.

Remove the spring steel retainers from carrier and clean all signs of brake dust, grease and corrosion from both the carrier and the calliper, paying particular attention to any machined faces.




Working on the calliper, carefully release the piston dust seal from the piston with a small screwdriver. A garage would have an airline handy to blow out the piston, but I had to make do with the tyre inflator from my Honda IMS. Cover the calliper with plenty of rags to catch the piston and prevent a shower of brake fluid. My plan was to use a Schrader valve (a quid from the local tyre place) in the tyre connector pushed firmly against the banjo hole.

Unfortunately my piston wouldn’t budge -most likely the cause of my sticking brake! I had to resort to a combination of pipe grips and a pair of screwdrivers to rotate and pry the piston. Had I had a suitable bolt (possibly M10 fine?) I’d have been able to drive the piston out from the back using the threaded banjo bolt hole at the rear.




Once out about 15mm the piston became more free, and the IMS pump & valve combo popped it out like a cork from a Champagne bottle.

As expected, the piston showed some corrosion. Not really bad, but there was ring of pitting right where the seal sits, and it was presumably this that was causing the extra friction.




Lift out the old piston seal with a small screwdriver, taking care not to mark the piston bore or seal retaining groove. Clean the calliper thoroughly with brake cleaner and clean rags and allow to dry.

Refitting is basically a reversal of the procedure.

Start by smearing the outer edges of the piston seal with a little silicon grease (supplied in my seal kit) and slipping into place. Add a little clean brake fluid to the inner edge, ready to receive the piston.

The next problem was getting the piston dust boot on. Fitting it to the calliper OR the piston is easy. Getting it on at both ends is impossible! Having lost count of the number of failed attempts I had a stroke of genius (if this is actually well known method, I don’t care. I’m claiming it as my own!)

Smear the retaining lip on the calliper and the inside of the seal with red grease, then attach to the calliper, checking it’s correctly seated all the way round.




Cut a 40mm strip of plastic from the side of a 2 litre pop bottle and roll into a sleeve then push into the hole in the calliper.




Smear the rear face and sides of the piston with clean brake fluid then insert through the sleeve.

Once the piston has passed the lip on the rubber boot carefully withdraw the pop bottle sleeve. I’m not saying this method makes it easy, it just makes it possible!

Continue pushing the piston into the calliper body until it’s located in the piston seal. Once it’s started, making sure it’s nice and square, it can be driven gently home with a G clamp.

Once the piston is fully in, the dust cover will automatically locate in the rebate on the piston. Once I’d done this I put it back on the IMS pump and pushed the piston out half an inch again, just to confirm the dust boot was correctly seated.

Refit the pad spring to the calliper.


Back to the carrier:
Refit the spring steel retainers to the carrier.
Lubricate the slides with grease (sachet supplied with my replacement slides) and slide in and out a few times to distribute, recalling which bore had the round and flatted-side slide fitted.

Attach the bellows dust cap to the carrier end (look carefully, the boot has an inny and an outy end) push in the slide, finally locating the boot in the recess at the end.




Offer the calliper to the carrier and fit the retaining bolts (12mm socket) and torque to 22Nm, stopping the slide from rotating with a 17mm spanner on the other side. Check the calliper is free to move in and out along the slides.

Refit the pads and shims smearing the back of the pads and shims with copper grease.

Remove the mounting brackets from the old flexi hose and transfer to the new.




Attach the new flexi hose (using new washers) to the calliper, observing the orientation, and torque the banjo bolt to 34Nm. I pulled a finger cut from a rubber glove over the free end of the hose. If it gets scraped under the wheel arch on refitting, you really don’t want a hose full of grit! If you’re unsure of the orientation, do this bit back on the car. If you get banjo backwards the mid point hose mounting bracket will be upside down!

Offer the brake ***embly to the hub, fitting the two carrier-to-hub bolts (14mm socket) and torque down to 55Nm.


Check the union on the end of the metal brake pipe is free of contamination, then reattach the free end of the flexi hose (15Nm).

Check the disc is free to rotate, proceed to bleed the air from the system. I used my Heath Robinson pressure bleeder (yes, that IS a Lucozade bottle), but do it whichever way works for you.




With the wheel back on take the car for a cautious test drive, keeping an eye out for weeping fluid from the connections, unexpected peddle feel etc. Fingers crossed that’ll be the end of it!

I have this DIY as a PDF. If anyone wants it (e.g. if my free hosted pictures start going off line) drop me a PM

That's an excellent write up mate. Full credit to you. This deserves a rep point for sure.

BRILLIANT work. Top marks and FANTASTIC pics. Thanks for putting this together. B) B)

Kudos and thanks to you sir - excellent write up !

WOW! Pointage heading your way dude.

Well done!! Definately a Rep point!

Excellent work Matt,

Great write up and thanks for taking the time to do it

Fantastic write up Matt, never seen better ( or as good ) love the pressure bleeding system bud.

Well done Matt, as others have said - what an excellent write up. This is bound to help tourer/non tourer bods no end.
Woop woop!
Hope this fixes your problem dead in the water...


Andy/Fahad this is a good candidate for a sticky -surely?

Fantastic write-up, especially the level of detail. I love the tags on the pictures, makes it all very clear.

Thanks for sharing!

cracking write up there
Im sure this will help alot of members

Great right up Matt this is one of the best iv seen a credit to you.a well deserved rep point on its way

Just what I was looking for. Thanks.

I will use this excellent guide soon as one side started to smell funny and it gets hot as well. I took the wheel off and had bit of a trouble to turn it. After removing the caliper I still had the problem but wheel turned more freely. Seems like hand brake is busted too...Shoes were new about 3 years ago, maybe some spring come lose? We will see.

Thanks for such excellent write up and part numbers, will help a lot when ordering. Cheers!

How to tell which caliper repair kit I need if I have pre-facelift saloon? There are different kits for Lucas, Nissin and TRW brake system.

Mine had Nissin stamped on the body -though I only found that out when they're were off the car.

Tourer = Nissin
Saloon = Lucas/TRW

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Anyway my Lucas kit arrived today and most likely I'll fit it on saturday. Planning to paint the calipers black as well, which will match new brake discs better than the old rusty ones.

matsalka said:

Tourier = Nissin
Saloon = Lucas/TRW

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Anyway my Lucas kit arrived today and most likely I'll fit it on saturday. Planning to paint the calipers black as well, which will mach new brake discs better than the old rusty ones.

Click to expand...

No correction needed, that's right.

Nice one mate

Hi,

A great write up indeed. I am experiencing stuck caliber on my saloon 2.2 2006 diesel rear n/s. I thinks its the handbrake which has caused the sticking caliber. Reason being i can feel the handbook lever loos for first 2 notches when pulling hand brake. It was not like that before.

Do you think i still need to recondition the caliber or change the caliber as it is due to hand brake? PLEASE ADVISE...

Many Thanks

If anyone needs the pictures in this post, they're available in a PDF here: http://jmp.sh/SGnnNzQ

Hi Matt, could tell me how much you paid for the Honda hose (with TA discount)?
Looking to replace both rear hoses on my '05 Tourer but think I've been quoted the wrong part through Holdcroft.

Sent from my XT1068 using Tapatalk

My o/r rear break is overheating I changed caliper, sliders, disc pads, rear shoes and brake hose and it still over heats