Brake Caliper Rebuild

[chargeR]

[DIY] DC5 Front Brake Caliper Rebuild

Disclaimer: The following is provided as a GUIDE ONLY, and neither myself nor Ozhonda take any responsibility for the outcomes of someone else doing the following. You follow these steps at your own risk!

I recently rebuilt my front pair of calipers on my DC5R so I thought I would share the general process I went through. The process should be very similar for most Honda single piston slider calipers as fitted to nearly every modern Honda car. The only front calipers that would be significantly dissimilar are anything Brembo, like JDM DC5R, and some NSX and Legend calipers. DISCLAIMER: I take no responsibility for any misadventures that may befall you if you attempt this DIY. Please only proceed if you have adequate mechanical knowledge.

The better later pics are thanks to Mugsee .

Aim: To rebuild a single piston slider caliper

Stuff you will need:
Caliper rebuild kit (Part No. 01463-S2A-000. Suitable for EP3R front, AUDM DC5R front and S2K front calipers. 1 per caliper)
Scissors
Gloves
Assorted screwdrivers
Brake fluid
An old aerosol can cap
Brake clean
12mm spanner
19mm spanner

Stuff you will also need if you are removing the caliper from the car or installing it after rebuild:
Jack
Jack Stands
17mm socket
19mm socket
14mm socket/spanner
Breaker bar
Brake fluid
Torque Wrench

Figure 1: Caliper exploded view



Step 1: Removing the caliper from the car

I have no pictures of this part because I rebuilt spare calipers that I had lying around thanks to air23box, however it is pretty simple. To remove the caliper from the car first raise the front of the car on to jack stands after loosening the wheel nuts. Remove the wheel. The caliper is held on to the knuckle by two 17mm head bolts on the inner side, and the brake line is fixed to the caliper by a 14mm head banjo bolt. Remove these and wrap the dangling brake line in something to prevent the brake fluid going everywhere. Alternatively you can use a suitably sized nut and bolt with the sealing washers to seal up the banjo fitting or a commercially available brake line clamp (thanks ecu-man). You should now have in your hot little hands a fairly dirty and beaten up caliper that looks something like this:

Figure 2: Caliper



Step 2: Disassembly and cleaning

The first step I did was to remove the piston from the caliper. I did this by pushing on the back of the piston with a medium sized philips head screwdriver as in figure 3. It took quite a bit of force, and be careful where you place the end of the screwdriver so as to not score the inner bore of the caliper or damage the threads where the brake line attaches. An alternative method to remove the piston is to use a compressor to spray compressed air through the back of the caliper to force it out. I don't have a compressor.

Once the piston is removed the old dust seal can be removed and the piston seal can be gently pried out with a small flat head screwdriver pictured in figure 4 taking care not to score or damage the bore of the caliper. One can then remove the caliper body from the bracket by sliding it the pins out of the bracket and removing the old slider boots. At this stage you should inspect the bore of the caliper for rust or scoring that may make it unusable. The pins can be removed from the caliper body by undoing the 12mm head bolts whilst holding the pins stationary with the 19mm spanner.

Once the caliper was completely disassembled I cleaned it with a combination of aerosol brake clean, strong solution of Simple Green all purpose cleaner and a stiff brush. I then sat it in the sun to dry.

Figure 3: Removing the piston


Figure 4: Removing the piston seal


Figure 5: Caliper completely disassembled


Figure 6: Caliper cleaned and ready for reassembly

[chargeR]

Step 3: Reassembly

Now comes the fun part. Your caliper rebuild kit should contain the following items, mostly pictured in Figure 7:
1 piston dust boot
1 piston seal
2 slider boots
2 sealing washers
3 sachets of grease

First coat the bore of the caliper and the piston in brake fluid (this can be seen in Figure 7), I just used some RBF600 that I had lying around. Wear gloves, don't be foolish like me. Then coat the piston seal in the clear grease picture in Figure 7 and insert it into its groove, the one that is deeper into the caliper, in the caliper bore as shown in Figure 8. I then coated the caliper dust boot with the supplied rubber grease, which I guessed was the pink stuff, and inserted it into its groove in the caliper bore, which is the upper of the two grooves, as shown in Figure 9.

The next part of the reassembly is the most difficult. Getting the piston into the caliper with the dust boot correctly seated around it. The way I did it was to make a clever device to spread the dust boot out to a large enough diameter to be able to fit the piston in using a cut up aerosol can cap. The process for making this awesome tool is shown in Figure 10 stolen from someone else on the internets. Mine can be seen in the top right corner of Figure 7. Even with this special tool it takes quite a bit of fiddling to get the dust boot around the piston. Once the dust boot is around the piston and seated in the groove on the piston one can carefully push the piston into the caliper and end up with something resembling Figure 11. Be careful when pushing the piston back in that it is going in square to the bore to avoid damage to the piston seal, it should not take a great deal of effort. I used one hand to push it back in.

Figure 7: The contents of the rebuild kit


Figure 8: Piston seal in place


Figure 9: Dust boot in place


Figure 10: Making a boot spreading tool


The alternative method I have read to get the boot around the piston is to place the piston against the boot and then blow compressed air into the back of the caliper to blow the boot up like a balloon and around the piston.

Finally all that needs to be done is to put the slider pins back on the caliper if they were removed and torque the bolts holding them to the desired 32Nm. The pins are then greased using the orange grease as shown in Figure 12 and the pin boots greased using the pink grease. I am not entirely sure whether I used the correct greases for each application, so before doing your own seek clarification from an authorised factory manual as to which grease is suitable for which parts of the caliper. Then the caliper body can be slid into the caliper bracket and the slider boots seated correctly. It should slide back and forth very smoothly, if it doesn't pull it back out and put more grease on the pins. One caliper freshly rebuilt as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 11: Piston in


Figure 12: Slider pin in and greased


Figure 13: Completed caliper


Step 4: Refitting caliper to car

Again I have no pics of this part but basically install the caliper in the reverse order of removal taking care to torque all bolts to the recommended settings given in Figure 1. Also be sure you refit all shims and put the pads back in the same positions in the caliper to ensure no loss of braking efficiency. Also this is where the new sealing washers included are to be used, they go either side of the banjo fitting that bolts to the caliper. Once the caliper is fitted the brakes will need to be bled. Take the car for a test drive to make sure it still stops. All done.

[chargeR]

Let me know if anything needs clarification or if you believe any part of this DIY to be in error.

[ECU-MAN]

nice work, looks good,

you can use a clamping tool to gently clamp the brake line to stop it leaking, ( <$15 from supa cheap or repco )

you may want to point out that you should inspect the piston and bore for corrosion ( make sure they are not pitted or badly scored )

also take care when removing the old seal from teh bore not to scratch the bore

please add the OH disclaimer

[chargeR]

nice work, looks good,

you can use a clamping tool to gently clamp the brake line to stop it leaking, ( <$15 from supa cheap or repco )

you may want to point out that you should inspect the piston and bore for corrosion ( make sure they are not pitted or badly scored )

also take care when removing the old seal from teh bore not to scratch the bore

please add the OH disclaimer

Thanks I added those changes and the disclaimer .

[dynosaur]

can u be more specific explain on where are we need to use the 'pink' colour grease ?

[chargeR]

can u be more specific explain on where are we need to use the 'pink' colour grease ?

Well the rebuild kit came with 3 different sachets of grease: one pink, one orange, one clear.

The only one that said what it was to be used for was the pink one which stated for use on rubber like the boots. I used the orange one on the sliders because that is what colour some of the grease already in there was, and I used the clear one on the piston seal because it was the only one left .

[90LAN]

good write up thou

[dynosaur]

are there going to be any different with or without inner & outer pad shims (brake pads)?

[dynosaur]

does NSX caliper rebuild kit can get in Aus ?

(as i know the NSX caliper is twin blocks, correct me if i m wrong)

[chargeR]

does NSX caliper rebuild kit can get in Aus ?

(as i know the NSX caliper is twin blocks, correct me if i m wrong)

If you can find a part number and have a sympathetic local Honda parts department you should have no trouble getting such a rebuild kit. Any Honda parts department should be able to look it up on their system and order it in anyway.

are there going to be any different with or without inner & outer pad shims (brake pads)?

The caliper I was rebuilding did not have the caliper backing plates/shims with it but I did use my existing ones when I swapped the caliper back on to the car .

[adnoh]

hi chargeR,

I got some question...

do u know what is the re built kit part number dc2 ITR calipers ?

thanks