The Definitive 300zx Rear Brake Swap Photo Guide (56k beware)

[Onizuka]

For your reading and veiwing pleasure: A photo swap guide for the installation of 300zx rear brakes.

First thing is first, get your tools together! Nothing is worse than having to stop every 5 seconds to take a trip to where ever it is you buy tools. Here is what you will need:-Floor jack-rubber mallet-hammer-12mm socket-17mm socket-19mm socket-22mm socket or 7/8inch end of lugnut cross wrench-36mm socket-10mm flare nut wrench-socket wrench-big torque wrench-bigger torque wrench (at least 150 ft-lb capacity)-breaker bar-pickle fork set-small pliers-2 small screw drivers-one big flathead screwdriver-Dremel with lots of fiber re-enforced cutting disks-WD40 and/or PBlaster (what project doesn't need a can of wd40?)



First your going to want to get the arse end of the car up in the air with jackstands. Please remember, safey first, dont put jackstands on any moving suspension parts. After you get the rear wheels and shocks off, its time to really get into the process of removing your rear brakes.



The first thing I attacked were the axel nuts. With a screwdriver,start to straiten out the folded end of the safety pin.



Next use your small pliers to finish straitening the pin.



Insert the screwdriver into the loop end of the pin, and using a hammer tap it out.



Once the pin is out, you remove the metal cover to expose the big axel nut.



Next, use your 36mm socket and breaker bar to loosen the nut.



If you're having trouble loosening the nut by hand, or the suspension arms are moving around too much, place the floor jack underneath the lower control arm for stability, and use your body weight on the breaker bar for greater effect.



Smile, you're done step one! Now do the other side before you start on the next step, you'll want both axel nuts off before you take off your calipers.



For step two, I began by loosening the the three control arm bolts (19mm). Again you'll probably want the floorjack under the lower arm to keep things still while loosening.



Now move on over to the brake caliper. Take off the brake line using a 12mm socket. Make sure to have a bucket handy for brake fluid, you dont want it dripping all over the place making things slick or ruining paint.



Next you're going to want to take off the ebrake cable from the caliper. Make sure your handbrake is down or this part will be near impossible Take a small screwdriver and remove the clip holding in the e-brake cable. After the clip is removed it should be fairly easy for you to unhook the e-brake cable from the caliper.



Now take the 17mm socket and remove the 2 bolts holding the caliper on.



With that you can take the caliper and rotor off, giving you a bit more space to work with.



Now you want to remove those control arm bolts you loosend earlier and let the hub block hang outwards. This will give you some space to work on removing the lower control arm, which will probably be the hardest part of the removal process for you. Another safety pin holds the balljoint nut in place, so again, start with the screwdriver to begin straitening it out.



Like before, finish off the straitening with the small pliers.



Since the loop at the end of the pin is too small to fit a flathead screwdriver into, I pushed the non-loop side with the flathead and pulled with my hand on the loop side. It came out fairly easy this way.



This is the part where you use your 22mm socket, or in my case the 7/8 inch end of a lugnut cross wrench, to remove the nut from the lower control arm ball joint.



Twist the hub block until you can remove the CV-joint from the hub to get it out of the way.



If you have been struggling up until this point, suck it up, this is the hardest part comming up. Its time to seperate the ball joint from the hub-block, and it will be a pain in the arse. Jam a pickle fork of appropriate size inbetween the hub block and lower control arm. NOTE: Use a pick fork big enough that it doesnt tear the crap out of the rubber dust boot, if you wreck it you will have to buy a whole new lower control arm because they dont sell separate ball joints. New control arms with ball joints cost about $100 per side new.



I suggest spraying WD40 several times first and letting it sit a while before you start pounding away with the hammer, it makes seperating the objects infinitely easier. But even when its infinitely easier, it will still be a pain in the arse. Whack away with the hammer (or heavy rubber mallet) on the end of the pickle fork until the damn hub block pops off.



Next to come will be removal of the stock e-brake cables. Stay tuned Niconauts!

June 5th 2006- Part 2

Onto the removal of the emergency brake cable. As you see right above the axel, the first bracket to remove is mounted to the rear subframe hoop above the front of the differential. I sprayed a little Blaster PB on it because it looked a little corroded. It came off really easy afterwords using a 10mm wrench.

Now we move under the car. It really helps alot to take out the driveshaft, it makes this part pretty easy.

Once you're flipped over onto your back, get at the next bracket with a 10mm socket.

Next, if you flip over the e-brake splitter, you'll see the slots for removing the individual rear cables.

Now that one side is done, repeat the whole process on the other side!

Part III, Return of the Jediahhya, urmmm, *cough*, oil seal and brake line removal. Only remove the stock brake line if you plan on upgrading to a Stainless steel braided hose with the proper 10mm IF fitting (stock is a 10mm banjo fitting, which can be used on the 300zx caliper with extra washers). The stock 300zx brake line has the right fittings on both ends but is too short.

I forgot to take a picture of the tools needed for this part, but here is what I used:-10mm brake line nut wrench (flare nut wrench?)-8 inch three hook puller-blaster pb-flathead screwdriver

If you look at the back of the uprights, you will see that the alumium 300zx upright has a rubber dirt seal and the 240sx one doesnt. This is because the 240sx has the dirt seal attached to the axel.

I measured to make sure the 240sx axel would fit into the 300zx dirt seal without the stock metal seal on the axel, and at 58mm it is a direct fit.

Now, while removing the metal dirt seal from the axel allows the 240sx axel to fit in the 300zx hub, removing the 300zx rubber seal will not allow the 240sx metal seal to fit in the 300zx upright. The uprights have different diamiters opening to the back of the hubs. So, start with spraying a little blaster pb/wd40 onto the metal seal on the axel.

Next go ahead and attach your 8 inch puller onto the metal seal.

You will have to steady the axel with your hand while you wrench down on the puller, dont worry, it doesnt require very much torquing for it to come off.

After it pops off, the axel is all ready to go.

Now, onto the very last (optional) step of the removal process. If you are planing up upgrading to the proper brakelines like I am, You need to seperate the stock rubber brake line from the hardline.

Mine was quite corroded, so I sprayed alot of blaster pb onto it.

Do not use a standard 10mm wrench on this nut, brakeline flare nuts are made of a very soft metal and will get rounded off without using a proper wrench like this one here.

Once you get the wrench on there, make absolutly sure you are torquing in the right direction, you can still round off the nut with the proper wrench by overtightening.

More to come in just a little bit.

Aug 23rd: Everything Else!

Ok its been a while, but I finally got some time to finish this whole deal up, so here it goes!

To make things go smooth with the 300zx e-brake cables, I made just a few really easy modifications

I started off with removing the metal clip wrapped around the e-brake cable in the middle. A hefty screw driver and my bulging forarm muscles were enough to get it off.

Next, I went about cutting off the metal tab at the end of the cable with a dremel (I've probably mentioned this before, but you should own a dremel if you're even only remotely interested in carwork)

Now we are going to move on to actually putting the hub and ebrake assembly onto the car. There are a couple of things your are going to need to make sure you have. First is the steel insert that the assembly is going to sit on, I bought new 240sx ones at the dealer.

You are also going to need a different ball joint nut. Below on the left is the old ball joint nut off the 240sx assembly, on the right is the 300zx nut with washer (both are 22mm). It is important to use the thinner nut and washer to protect the aluminum mating surface. You can also see in the picture the insert now resting on the ball joint.

Pick up the preped hub assembly and lift it up onto the control arm, then hand tighten the ball joint nut with washer.

You're going to be torquing the nut down between 52 and 64 ft-lb using a 22mm socket (I actually used a 24mm for lack of the right size)

To make things easier on yourself, put the assembly into possition and slide the bolts in. Finish torqing and get ready for the next part. After the nut is torqued down, dont forget to put a safety pin back in.

Take out the bolts again and swing the assembly towards yourself. Manhandle the axel into place and slide everything together.

Now you lift everything into place and put the front and rear control arm bolts in.

Due to the much larger rotor heat shield, the only way to torque down the front bolt is from the back. Lift up the upper control arm and torque the 19mm bolt to 57-72 ft-lbs.

Now you can put the top control bolt in, also torquing to 57-72 ft-lbs.

The rear control arm (or Super HICAS arm if your car is equiped) gets torqued to 36-51 ft-lbs.

Just to get it out of the way, put the washer and axel nut back on there (just hand tightend for now).

Installing the Emergency Brake Cables!Because I hate rattles, and the ebrakes arnt held down by anything but tension in the cable, I decided to wrap some foam around the metal collar at the end using a ziptie.

Feed the cable through the hole in the rear subframe.

After it is in, you will notice that the rubber thingy you hopefully left on the cable will seal nicely (with a little work) in that hole and keep everything nice and stable.

Now go back and finish the other side up to this point. After you have both side up to the same point, move under the car to attach the e-brake cables to the hand brake splitter-mabobathingy.

Woot! most of the hard stuff is done!

Now to put in the brakes and suspension and tighten everything up. If you can recal from earlier, the 300zx rear brake setup (if you chose to go the aluminum upright path) uses a different mounting method. You are going to need to make sure you have the right 300zx bolts and nuts for the job. Of course you need hybrid rear shocks as well (I went with KTS coilovers).

Lift those sexy coilovers up into place and then slide a bolt into the mounting hole to hold up the shock while you screw things into place up top in the trunk (I just hand tighten, but the factory service manual recomends 12-14 ft-lb if you have a torque wrench that small).

Take the bolt out, jack up the whole thing, and put the bolt back in. I dont have a 300zx factory service manual so I dont know what its supposed to be tightend to, but I torqued it to about 45 ft-lbs.

OK, now onto the brakes. Put on those big beefy vented rear rotors and aluminum 2-piston calipers. Remove the brake line bracket from the back of the caliper if its still there, it cant be used. Torque the caliper bolts to 28-38 ft-lbs and hand tighten the conversion brake line.

Now that brakes are in place we can finally tighten those axel nuts. The E-brake alone was enough to hold everything in place for me, but you may need a friend to step on the brakes while you tighten. Take your big stinkin' torque wrench and set it to 152-203 ft-lbs and go at it.

Next put in the crowned nut cap and safety pin.

Now to fully appreciate the fruits of your labor, put on a hot set of wheels and drive around in your car (or look at it on jack stands, like me)

Review of the 300zx brake swap:It was time consuming, dirty and expensive (when you include the cost of coilovers), but not that difficult for someone with a little experience. I personally enjoyed doing the swap and it was totally worth it to me. If you are someone who isnt afraid to try things on your own such as an engine swap, this should be moderately easy to get done in a weekend. One thing this swap definatly requires is a good amount of tools, you may want to take that into account if you are trying to price out this swap for yourself.

Onizuka's price list:-full 300zx brakeset (f&r) $450-KTS coilovers (f&r) $1100-Rear stainless steel conversion brake lines $45-OEM steel seats for z32 uprights $25-new left control arm (obviously optional if you dont mess up) $100-paint, degreaser, misc $40Total: ~$1760

You could easily do the rear 300zx brakes for under $300 if you use the 240sx uprights and skip all the kick *** suspension stuff and dont break any parts you need to reuse.

I hope you found this photo guide useful. Comments, corrections and questions are certainly welcome. Until next time, keep turning those wrenches. -Onizuka

Modified by Onizuka at 4:02 PM 8/26/2006
Modified by Onizuka at 10:31 PM 8/28/2006

[RB20DETodd]

Im still unclear on how to take the cotter pin out

LOL cant wait for the rest!! good job

[Feint of Heart]

Wow! Thanks man!!

Now I'll know exactly how to do the swap (when I get the cash I need haha)

Great How-To!

[Sil40_Mayhem]

Yes, with the advent of this write-up, your awesomeness is assured.

[240 Trainee]

Whats your plan for the e-brake?

[hannibal]

I'm guessing he's gonna use the Z32 knuckle and ebrake. Otherwise, I'm not sure why he removed the stock knuckle.

Looks good Matt. Nice gloves!

[Craftsman]

Great step-by step so far. Looking forward to its completion.

[redears240]

yeah when i get this upgrade i wanna make sure i do everything right and do everything at the same time, including ebrake, i dont want my car without ebrake, especially since its stick. i dont trust leaving my car in first.

[eds13]

Not to rain on your parade or anything Fiss but,(i hope i'm not over stepping my bounds) another good thing to have is a can of "PB blaster". And dont be afraid to soak those bolts down!

BTW, good right up!

[nvrplzd240]

nice write-up

but i really think all these write-ups should stop... all of them are too good of ideas not to do, and i'll soon be broke if ppl keep doin this

[Onizuka]

Thanks for the replies guys!

Yeah I'm doing the whole thing, aluminum uprights, drum e-brake, etc.....

I was going to finish up with the ball joint removal and ebrake removal writeup stuff today too, but the ball joint was being a huge pain so I left it to soak in wd40. If anyone has a super tip for removing ball joints from lower arms with ease, please do let me know

[eds13]

but the ball joint was being a huge pain so I left it to soak in wd40. If anyone has a super tip for removing ball joints from lower arms with ease, please do let me know

I'm telling you, soak it in pb blaster! that stuff works! put a jack under teh control arm and beat from the top hitting the ball joint. make sure you put the nut on the ball joint so you don't mess up the threads.

[grimple1]

Amazing write up! Kudos to you!

[PapaSmurf2k3]

+ 1 for pounding the crap out of the balljoint with a hammer, sometimes you can get a punch and hit the bottom of it.

[hudy]

I was going to finish up with the ball joint removal and ebrake removal writeup stuff today too, but the ball joint was being a huge pain so I left it to soak in wd40. If anyone has a super tip for removing ball joints from lower arms with ease, please do let me know

Hit the red X with a big ball peen hammer if you can. It usually works for me. Sometimes you can't due to lack of space. It doesn't look that bad in your case. If that doesn't work something like this can be bought/borrowed at autozone.http://brandsplace.stores.yaho....html

[RB20DETodd]

I'm telling you, soak it in pb blaster! that stuff works! put a jack under teh control arm and beat from the top hitting the ball joint. make sure you put the nut on the ball joint so you don't mess up the threads.

pb blaster is gay, "mouse milk" is the winner

[amolao]

Very nice writeup, you must work for Chilton's....Yes when hitting the lower control arm joint I had to put a real sledge hammer on that sucka, very sturdy.....

[travisn]

if you are trying to remove the lower ball joint heat up the control arm around the ball joint to expand the metal then use a press (from autozone) you might be able to use a press w/o heating it but heat always makes things easier. (some ball joints are bolted in and some have a c-clip holding them in, i dont remember for 240's but check, it will make life a lot easier...)

and if the ball joint isnt bad then dont use a pickle fork, which will ruin the dust boot and eventually the ball joint itself. use a hammer and hit the knuckle where the ball joint goes into it like hudy said. it is a tapered stud that is just jammed in there... if you hit the knuckle there (red X in hurdys pic)it will shock the stud and it will just fall down. and the ball joint is still good... but hurdy, he was talking about how to remove the ball joint from the lower control arm, not separating the knuckle from the lca, which i explained in the first paragraph

for all hammering applications a hammer bit on a air hammer is the best for close quarters, it can loosen the ball joint to knuckle spot and help drive out the ball joint from the LCA after it is heated. heat is your friend.

[le_ryan]

pb blaster is gay, "mouse milk" is the winner

+1 for mouse milkAnd great write up!

[Onizuka]

I got brand new ball joints for free from the dude who sold me the full 300zx brake set, so I'm going to replace them anyway. I tore up the rubber boot with the pickle fork and then set it on fire with a torch trying to remove the ball joint, so.....

I hope to finish this writeup this weekend, after I get home from autocross (with my moms car )

[gaehrings13]

I had to change my control arms on my car and I just hit them real hard with a hammer. It might be better to take the lower control arm off first because its easier with everything still held together.

[hudy]

ifand if the ball joint isnt bad then dont use a pickle fork, which will ruin the dust boot and eventually the ball joint itself. use a hammer and hit the knuckle where the ball joint goes into it like hudy said. it is a tapered stud that is just jammed in there... if you hit the knuckle there (red X in hurdys pic)it will shock the stud and it will just fall down. and the ball joint is still good... but hurdy, he was talking about how to remove the ball joint from the lower control arm, not separating the knuckle from the lca, which i explained in the first paragraph

for all hammering applications a hammer bit on a air hammer is the best for close quarters, it can loosen the ball joint to knuckle spot and help drive out the ball joint from the LCA after it is heated. heat is your friend.

In regards to not understanding, sorry.

Travis is right about damaging with the pickle fork though. Those things usually tear through dust boots. I have never had the need to remove the taperd stud from it's socket. Good luck with that one.

[hudy]

I was just browsing the FSM and it says if the lower ball joint is worn, replace lower control arm.

[superDorifto]

I got brand new ball joints for free from the dude who sold me the full 300zx brake set, so I'm going to replace them anyway. I tore up the rubber boot with the pickle fork and then set it on fire with a torch trying to remove the ball joint, so.....

I hope to finish this writeup this weekend, after I get home from autocross (with my moms car )

sorry to thread jack, but where did you get a new set of rear ball joints? i had the rear LCA's on my s13 powder coated and i had the shop throw out the old ball joints. I havent been able to find a set anywhere...fronts are available at any auto parts store, but i cannot find a part number for the rears. the local dealership says that the ball joints arent available seperately, only in a new set of LCA's...

[amolao]

I was replacing the complete lower arm so saving the control ball joint wasn't a priority at the time. Trying to get the *&^%!! thing out was....Yes, I tried the press and no luck. Then went back to the pickle fork and sledge hammer. After hitting those mofo's for about 15 minutes they finally gave away....I will definetely use heat next time if I have it available. And yes you are right, as soon as you use the fork and hammer your ball joints will be die on you...

[MagikDragon]

Thanks for the replies guys!

Yeah I'm doing the whole thing, aluminum uprights, drum e-brake, etc.....

I was going to finish up with the ball joint removal and ebrake removal writeup stuff today too, but the ball joint was being a huge pain so I left it to soak in wd40. If anyone has a super tip for removing ball joints from lower arms with ease, please do let me know

go to autozone and rent that big c clamp I just did that swap last weekend, it was pretty easy. The tools is called the ball joint press. heh go figure.

[Onizuka]

I ended up doing just that.

And with that, ball joint and e-brake cable removal is up.

[daytona drifter]

you are definatly making me regrete the fact that i just replaced everything in the rear with stock parts.

thanks alot j/k

[2iv0 sx]

Great detailed pictures!! how is it coming?

[Onizuka]

Ahh, another update. Just some stuff I forgot I had to do. Installation of the uprights are going to have to wait just a little bit, I noticed that they are missing the conical metal collar inserts that the ball joint rests on, so I'm going to have to take them to a shop to have the ones from the 240sx uprights pressed in.

I did some weighing of the brake parts, I'll post it in a new thread so the load time on this one doesnt get any longer than it already is.