Help...300zx brake swap problem

[T_love]

Here's my situation.. I'm in the middle of a 5-lug and z32 brake swap. First wheel was driver side front. After a few hours i managed to get the hubs swapped and the z32 rotor installed. The calipers went in OK and then i realized i had not swapped the brake lines. I went to remove the old brake line from the wheel well connection. The bolt/nut would not budge one inch. Now i have pretty much rounded the darn thing so what do i do now. Is there some special way of removing it other than the two wrench approach. If i can't remove it at all is there anything else i could do. i would really like to use my conversion lines coz they were not cheap and they are SS braided. Any help will be very much appreciated.

Sorry for the long post, i tend to overexplain things.

thanks in advance

[SWIFT_DRIFT]

Vise-grips and wd40 is all I can really say. Good luck.

[quiksilvia]

vise grips?

[T_love]

Thanks, I'll probably have to try that tomorrow

[the_invisible]

put the stock brakes back on and have a shop remove the stock lines from you. they have ways to remove it.

[T_love]

Any guess on how much they would charge me. Only problem with that is that i would have to put back my stock rotors on and put back the 4-lug hubs. That's gonna be a lot of work, backwards.

[SWIFT_DRIFT]

vise grips?

Yes vise-grips. He's already rounded the flare fitting on the stock line and he's not keeping the stock line.

[Hijacker]

scratch letting the shop do it. wd40 the hell out of the fitting and go to town with the vice grips. if you need to, get a big friend over and let him get it out with his better leverage

[T_love]

Yes vise-grips. He's already rounded the flare fitting on the stock line and he's not keeping the stock line.

Exactly

By the way, vice grips won't desroy that fitting will they? If so could i replace it with readily available parts from autozone or hardware store

[T_love]

Seems like vice grips are the way to go

[vwluv10338]

forget WD40, get some penetrating fluid

Eric

[robbbby]

If it is rounded vice grips are the way to go.

If you have others to do buy the proper pipe/brake line wrench for them.

On a side note I got mine off very easily with a 10mm wrench I believe.

[theronin]

just for further notice you all want to be using a flare nut wrench for that job! that is unless you want custom rounded hardline fittings by all means proceed with the vise grips!

[nolaws4evr]

wd40 works, but a penetrating catalyst would work the best. Try PB breaker, available at autozone and most hardware stores. And try to use the right size wrench next time.

Josh

[T_love]

Thanks for all the help guys. Vice grip didn't get too far so i figured my next option would be to disconnect the entire line and reinstall it(from MC all the way down) but i did not want to do this. So instead(sp?) i took my trusty dremel and cut the hell out of the nut from the line i was removing. I stopped right before i got to the threads and shaved opposite sides of the fitting in the body then used a smaller wrench and that sucker came right off. Th other side i tried to do it the right way but as soon as it looked like it was about to round the nut, i picked up the dremel. I would not recommend this to anybody but it works.

5-lug hubs, Z32 brakes and fittipaldi AV3s are on up front. I am literally scared of the rear hub. It looks like i have to disconnect the entire spindle(?) to be able to reach the bolts to take the hub out. So for now i'm rolling ricer style, 17's front with 15's in the back.

P.s. I know you're tired of reading but i have to say there is nothing like locking your wheels at 30mph. Those brakes rock!

[T_love]

just for further notice you all want to be using a flare nut wrench for that job! that is unless you want custom rounded hardline fittings by all means proceed with the vise grips!

hind-sight(sp? is always 20/20. Like they say coulda, shoulda, woulda but didn't

[180fan]

Well if you've ABS you might have to remove the lines. If you don't have ABS, look under your car. Follow your brake lines, and you'll see that you've got only one line from the BMC to a distribution block that goes to the rear lines. It's next to the drive shaft. Now you can disconnect the brake lines from there. I had to pop out the 2 hard brake lines from that distribution block because the flare nuts stripped at the brake lines when I was upgrading to SS lines. BTW Nissan has an updated design for them with stronger flare nuts. When you disconnect them from that distribution block, use two vise grips, one to hold onto the stripped flare nut, and the other on the brake line. They should come apart pretty easily now. If not, then you can always pull out hard brake line by pulling on them enough until you can get a good grip on the flare nut. Before going at the distribution block though, hose the area down with brake cleaner first, and then use penetrating grease (not KY btw ha ha ha) like WD-40, but I'd recommend using the synthetic stuff from valvoline. That got it off for me at the distrobution block.

[T_love]

now i have a completely different problem. I figure i'll try this trhread before starting another one. My passenger side brake is not releasing that much. when the car is on the Jack i can almost completely tighten the lug nuts before the wheel starts to spin. The driver side is fine and it spins almost freely when the car is raised up. For now i'm thinking that i might have too many of those shim things(Three on each counting the one that i had to peel off the OEM caliper and put on my metalic ones). I think it might be because there is no room for the pads to move back after release. My car pulls to the passenger side when driving and under normal breaking i can smell the brakes burning up.Do you guys think removing a couple of the shims might fix it?

[Def]

That caliper could be siezed. You'll need to rebuild it. Let the pads wear a bit, and if they're still like that in say 500 miles, then it's rebuild time.

If the piston rusts, it doesn't want to slide back in the bore, so it'll produce those symptoms. Take it from me, don't go out on a track like this(or drive on the interstate for long periods for that matter). You'll transfer pad material to the rotor and it'll shimmy like hell. Happened to a friend and he had to toss a brand new European M3, 2 piece floating rotor he just got - which are not cheap.

[T_love]

That caliper could be siezed. You'll need to rebuild it. Let the pads wear a bit, and if they're still like that in say 500 miles, then it's rebuild time.

If the piston rusts, it doesn't want to slide back in the bore, so it'll produce those symptoms. Take it from me, don't go out on a track like this(or drive on the interstate for long periods for that matter). You'll transfer pad material to the rotor and it'll shimmy like hell. Happened to a friend and he had to toss a brand new European M3, 2 piece floating rotor he just got - which are not cheap.

So would removing some of the shims have the same effect as letting the pads wear out, since i'll be freeing space either way. I really need to be able to use the car on the freeway or else it's gonna take me an extra 30 minutes to get to work

[T_love]

Sorry i was out of town for a few days. I removed some of the shims and it seems to move more freely. I drive it around tomorrow and see if that completely solved the problem. Thanx to all that helped

[bendychicken]

I know I caught this one a little late, but for future reference:When your dealing with flared fittings on an old car, it's always better to be safe than sorry. Once you round those fittings off the fun really starts. Try this next time, it has never failed for me.

Get a can off PB(fabulus blaster?)Get a QUALITY flare nut wrenchSpray the fitting with the PB. Tap the fitting on the hex part(not on the threads). make sure to tap it from multiple sides of the fitting. Spray the fitting again, and wait 5 min. Now, wipe off the hex part off the fitting. Put the flare nut wrench on the fitting. put vice grips(or cam pliers) OVER the "C" part of the wrench and clamp them down. This will keep the "C" from being forced open from the torque your going to put on it. Apply torque to the wrench. with torque still on the wrench tap it with a hammer. The fitting WILL break loose. This has never not worked for me.

[T_love]

I'll keep that in mind when i do the rear wheels.Thanx