Brake Fluid + Brake Pad Change - Order Important?

[chadwicke619]

Yes, performance pads tend to be flat. Even our OEM front pads are!

Well, I wouldn't bother with the rears for now, but I definitely would clean off the front pins. Grease near brakes is never ideal, maybe it could melt and drip onto the rotor/pad surface. I sometimes make a mess when greasing the rear sliding pins and then I need to use a brake cleaner on my rotors to remove any grease spots.

You probably noticed the rear sliding pins have a plastic enclosure with a cap. That is needed to keep contaminants (like brake dust) out of the grease. A good rule of thumb is that you usually shouldn't grease any spots open to contamination. But don't worry with the rears for now, next time you have to inspect your rear pads you can grease those pins.

Alright, cool dude! Thanks! This is kind of what I was thinking - just accept the largely-negligible unevenness of wear that I'll experience before I next put the car up, but clean the fronts. At least I can take the easy route and I don't need to put the car all the way up again (not that I "needed" to do it that way before, but you know what I mean).

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[keller]

Just one more practical tip for your track day since you recently bled your breaks.

I don't know if you used the factory spec for tightening your front bleeders, but you should always be careful when applying torque to them to avoid stripping the threads on the caliper. The bleeder screw is made of steel, while the caliper is aluminum (ie softer!) - that's why the front bleeders have a lower torque requirement than the rears.

At the same time, when things get hot, the aluminum caliper expands more than the steel bleeder screw. And that's when you might get a small leak - a caliper weep.

So I have noticed the factory spec is not enough to avoid a caliper weep. So the next trackday after bleeding my brakes, I come back to the pits after a few laps to inspect them and I sometimes have to take my wheels off and tighten them a little bit more. I also clean any leaked fluid to protect the caliper paint.

I was shocked the first time I saw my calipers with a small trail of fluid leaked from the bleeders...

 

[chadwicke619]

Just one more practical tip for your track day since you recently bled your breaks.

I don't know if you used the factory spec for tightening your front bleeders, but you should always be careful when applying torque to them to avoid stripping the threads on the caliper. The bleeder screw is made of steel, while the caliper is aluminum (ie softer!) - that's why the front bleeders have a lower torque requirement than the rears.

At the same time, when things get hot, the aluminum caliper expands more than the steel bleeder screw. And that's when you might get a small leak - a caliper weep.

So I have noticed the factory spec is not enough to avoid a caliper weep. So the next trackday after bleeding my brakes, I come back to the pits after a few laps to inspect them and I sometimes have to take my wheels off and tighten them a little bit more. I also clean any leaked fluid to protect the caliper paint.

I was shocked the first time I saw my calipers with a small trail of fluid leaked from the bleeders...

You know, that is super helpful to know, because we didn't have the torque specs handy for the bleeders and instead just hand tightened them real well. We did have a problem with my buddies rear passenger bleeder though. The rears on both our cars were harder to initially crack open, so everything you're saying completely tracks. I'll double check and tighter for sure.

One more random question, while we're at final thoughts - can I just hose my entire rotor/caliper/pad assembly with brake cleaner? Or is it going to eat away my red caliper paint and/or rubber bleeder caps? Just thinking about what I'll do if I have some grease that got where it shouldn't.

 

[keller]

You know, that is super helpful to know, because we didn't have the torque specs handy for the bleeders and instead just hand tightened them real well. We did have a problem with my buddies rear passenger bleeder though. The rears on both our cars were harder to initially crack open, so everything you're saying completely tracks. I'll double check and tighter for sure.

Torque specs for the CTR are front 14 Nm and rear 17 Nm.

Now, as I said, you should not overtighten them, specially the front bleeder screws. A friend once stripped the threads of his caliper by overdoing it. It is that easy to make a mistake. Once done, it's a lot of machining work to recover it - it's not unusual for people to just dump their caliper and purchase a new one. You want to tighten them just enough to not have them leaking. I confess that made me tighten them more than I was comfortable with.

The rear bleeder is steel on steel, so it's not that sensitive to some excess torque.

One more random question, while we're at final thoughts - can I just hose my entire rotor/caliper/pad assembly with brake cleaner? Or is it going to eat away my red caliper paint and/or rubber bleeder caps? Just thinking about what I'll do if I have some grease that got where it shouldn't.

I honestly don't know. I wouldn't do it. You can probably see if everything is alright by visual inspection. I usually apply brake cleaner on paper towels and then use that to carefully clean the surfaces in need. Remember that if you decide to remove your pads for this job, it's better to later install them in the exact same position so you don't need to bed them in again.

 

[RTC975]

Those with tapered rear pad wear, get Austin's bushings. They will help bigtime with that issue.

https://www.wunderladenracing.com/products/civic-x-bronze-rear-caliper-bushings

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