OK, I’m in on this… The Honda Ody is sensitive to any sticking of sliders and calipers, and i was sick of doing half-measure fixes on a nearly 18 yo car with original calipers. So here goes:
Out: Raybestos Element3 pads and rotors on all four corners; original calipers on all four corners. The pads and rotors weren’t that old, but i wanted to start fresh with all components.
In: Raybestos High Carbon disks and Akebono pads on front; Raybestos Element 3 pads and rotors on back; Raybestos Element3 NEW Calipers/Brackets on ALL corners. The old front caliper pistons were sticking a little, the old back calipers were also sticking a bit and the hardware was degrading. So time to go all new.
Notes: van drives and stops much better now. Front Akebonos came with the anti-drag springs, which is probably a good thing to keep the pads away from the disks since this vehicle seems to transmit front suspension/disk runout issues to the steering wheel more than any other car. The new Raybestos calipers/brackets seem to be working quite well, but i was a bit disappointed in the finish quality for a couple reasons. Certainly not the same quality as OEM hardware. Front Raybestos Calipers were made in China. Quite a bit of variability in the aesthetic finish, but i guess the critical interfaces are fine. The rear calipers were made in Korea and seem a bit better quality/consistency. The thing i hated most about these Raybestos calipers was the sloppy fit of the bleeder valves vs. OEM: as soon as you crack open the bleeder, the bleeder nipple wobbles very loosely.
Brake fluid notes: This van was subject to the “Honda’s Idea of a Brake Fluid Flush” which is: suction some out of the MC and fill it back up with new. I believe that the front calipers would have been much better off had the fluid been truly flushed at frequent intervals. The front calipers in particular had stratified layers of brake fluid in them when i took them out. The top layer was nice clean fluid (i did my own brake flush after the Honda Dealer ”flush”), but the fluid sitting around the two pistons on the front calipers was a watery black fluid (absolutely positively didn’t look or flow like brake fluid). You would have to either turn the caliper upside down or push the pistons out to get this small but important volume of nasty fluid out. This stratified layer of nasty fluid is what causes the pistons to get gummed up despite doing a bleeder flush (which is at the top of the caliper). I can say for sure that the nasty fluid and the clean fluid are not miscible!
