Taking apart Auto Zone z32 alluminum caliper

[E7-S14]

ive always heard not to take them apart.as there's a good chance they well leak at the seams.

guys have gotten away with it.

just my .02cent

[nightsauce]

ive always heard not to take them apart.as there's a good chance they well leak at the seams.

guys have gotten away with it.

just my .02cent

i took mine apart before and changed the seals and whatnot. Never had a leak, but my calipers weren't sealed together. If they're sealed i say keep em sealed.
Modified by nightsauce at 12:32 PM 8/19/2009

[hilux30]

These calipers are NOT monoblock. Monoblocks are made from a single piece of metal. A monoblock caliper does not have any bolts going from one side to the other besides the pad pin. Also, AZ doesn't cast these, they just take used calipers and send them off to get refurbished and then re-sell them.

are u kidding me, I own a big shop and I know my venders, I have a 240 with Z32 TT brakes and they DO NOT LOOK LIKE THAT! plus I've been doing this s*** long enough not to half a** on brakes. And these are monoblocks as opposed to sliding calipers... anyways good luck with ur half a** brake job.

[YuNg1's_240sx]

Will someone answer my questions?! i basically want to get a remanufactured calipers (j30), so that it works better, and looks betters. Is this a good route? Or would rebuilding the calipers do just the same thing without the better looks?

[hilux30]

getting J30 remans is fine, they take the factory caliper and rebuild it and they are usualy fine, but I just got off the phone with the auto zone rep and asked him about the J30 and Z32, the Z32's are not remans because there is very little factory parts to do the remanufacturing and are made by SENCO who cast there own "unknown" metal in china somewhere. But the J30 use factory parts and just rebuild them.

[JerseyS14]

so basically i'll return my half a** china capiers and buy used ones with the money i spent on these
Modified by JerseyS14 at 3:25 PM 8/18/2009

[YuNg1's_240sx]

Now there are two bolts like the one that is pointed to by the red arrow. One of them pinch down and the rubber bend, while the other is straight and doesnt bend. Now I cant remember when I took off the bolts and was wondering if the one that springs goes on the side with the bleeder?

[YuNg1's_240sx]

so basically i'll return my half a** china capiers and buy used ones with the money i spent on these

thats what he implied.

[E7-S14]

so basically i'll return my half a** china capiers and buy used ones with the money i spent on these

lol noautozone/advanced yada yada takes old calipers and rebuilds themautozone and a few others will put a 5mm spacers in the 28mm calipers to make them 30.

now if they made cast there OWN calipers why would they add a 5mm spacer to make them 30??the 30s are more popular thus they make the 28s 30s.

there all old z calipers taken apart, cleaned, rebuilt. that's it.don't bring yours back. there good.id just suggest not taking them apart.quit prying at them cuz you never know what little you did may have broken the seal a bit. and you may now have a leak.

i agree its weird the seams aren't 100 percent visible but they are most likely milled/worn down from where ever they were rebuilt.

such misinformation that goes on on this forum makes me sick

hilux30. you come of as an arrogant know it all.just my .02 cent.dont care if you wanted to hear it or not.

ill agree that that caliper looks a little beat. but its aluminum.not iron.its softer metal. if you hit it hard enough. or even a bit. it will made an indentation.those little humps could just have been caused by handling
Modified by E7-S14 at 2:51 PM 8/18/2009

[simmode1]

so basically i'll return my half a** china capiers and buy used ones with the money i spent on these

So the AZ calipers are a different design. Is that so bad? Are they proven to fail or something? Exactly what makes them a bad option?

I don't plan on powder coating or painting my brakes...

Edit: Even though my old roommate was an assistant mngr at Autozone and assured me that these calipers are remans... this thread has still managed to confuse the hell out of me.
Modified by simmode1 at 3:06 PM 8/18/2009

[spooled240]

are u kidding me, I own a big shop and I know my venders, I have a 240 with Z32 TT brakes and they DO NOT LOOK LIKE THAT! plus I've been doing this s*** long enough not to half a** on brakes. And these are monoblocks as opposed to sliding calipers... anyways good luck with ur half a** brake job.

monoblocks are made from one solid piece of metal like a "forged monoblock" rim, it's made from a solid block of aluminum which is then cut on a CNC. These calipers on the other hand are cast, being made by molten aluminum. I think you are getting this mixed up with a "fixed piston" style caliper as opposed to sliding piston calipers.

Autozone doesn't make calipers, that's the funniest thing i've ever heard. These are remanufactured calipers meaning they take old cores calipers and rebuild them. That's why these places take core alternators/batteries/calipers. Autozone is a parts store and isn't that big to have it's own plants to cast their own calipers for 15 year old nissans

It's because z32 factory service manual says so. Nissan doesn't sell small o-rings that go between two halves. You will have to reuse them or source exact same size o-rings. There's no torque spec for the 4 bolts that hold two pieces together. If you do it wrong, brake fluid will leak from the crack in the middle. I don't know. I ignored whatever z32 FSM said and powder coated mine and there's been no problem so far. No leaks or uneven wear of pads. Just be careful and rebuild them right and eveything should be okay. If I have to do it all over again, I'll still take them apart, rebuild and powder coat.

I work at pep boys and we have gotten customer cars with leaky calipers cuz the customers didn't really know what they were doing and split their 4 fixed piston calipers to do the brake job. I WOULD NOT SPLIT THEM

I painted my q45 brakes gold with this brush-on epoxy brake caliper paint from G2. This stuff is made in the USA and it's really durable. You won't have to take apart seals and s***, just mix and apply. here's how it turned out:

[E7-S14]

to add to Mr. spooled240s results.

this job was done with duplicolors spray high-temp paintthere base color and there high temp clear.

you can get great results if you do it right.

i think they came out great. and im glad i went with the gold.

just choose another method to paint your brakes.much less hassle IMO

[simmode1]

Oh... so.... AZ calipers are just fine. Cool.

[JerseyS14]

to add to Mr. spooled240s results.

this job was done with duplicolors spray high-temp paintthere base color and there high temp clear.

you can get great results if you do it right.

i think they came out great. and im glad i went with the gold.

just choose another method to paint your brakes.much less hassle IMO

Where'd you get your gold paint? if i can get mine to look like this then i don't have to get it powdercoated... do you have a part number... how many coats of each did you use? how long between coats...

[E7-S14]

i used Dupli-Color® Engine Enamel with Ceramic

DE 1604 Universal GoldDE 1636 Clear

it can withstand 500 degrees intermittent.but idk how hot brakes get. and i haven't had any problem with the paint to dates so yeah.

i thoroughly cleaned the caliperstaped off the piston areas. and bleeder.

i then applied about 3-4 coats of gold on each caliper.first coat lightsecond coat mediumand last 2 coats heavy. with about 10mins inbetween coars.

i then applied 3 coats of clear(more wouldn't hurt) first coat somewhat medium,and last 2 coats medium-heavy.

the clear will come out with a whitish color to it at first. ant wont look like its working. but im guessing that's how the enamel clear works.given time the white will dry clear.

be sure to give the calipers a good 3-4 days to cure.a week would be even better as the enamel clear takes forever to get dry and hard enough to handle w/o worrying about messing up.

tho i gave mine 24hours or 2 days to dry before i put it on the car.

if you want a more yellow color (similar to the z and g brembos)id lay a coat of yellow under the gold.which is what i should have done but wasn't thinking at the time.hope this helped.

just be careful not to run, and shake both cans thoroughly. esp the clear.

[Chingon]

here's the gist of things.

Brake calipers like these often mis-named as monoblocks are bolted together at a certain torque spec that nissan does not specify. You could find out the torque by reading what a needle torque wrench says in the 1st turn, however, i'm pretty sure it's over 150 lb-ft which is the range of these kind of wrenches.

Nicking the mating surfaces, getting some dirt, paint, powder coat between them will cause leaks. The bolts used are of the one-time use variety, and reusing (which is what most ppl do) them could cause flex or even worse your caliper spliting in half. I'm not positive but wouldn't be surprised if there's a lacquer/interface mating those two that requires some curing process.

Many aluminum alloys overage at a certain temperature. Unless your powdercoater uses a low-temp coat, the temp. is high enough to overage them. Look up "powder coat wheel failure" on google.

oh, and there's no such thing as "senco-made z32 calipers". That's the biggest line of bull i've read on here in oh, I don't know 15 minutes. I'd like to know the name of your shop so I never go in there.

What you got there seems like a 30 mm iron set of calipers, the iron calipers have a s***tier casting surface. Easy enough to figure out, just get a refrigerator magnet and stick it to them. If they're iron, then yeah, go ahead and powder coat them.

[hilux30]

lol noautozone/advanced yada yada takes old calipers and rebuilds themautozone and a few others will put a 5mm spacers in the 28mm calipers to make them 30.

now if they made cast there OWN calipers why would they add a 5mm spacer to make them 30??the 30s are more popular thus they make the 28s 30s.

there all old z calipers taken apart, cleaned, rebuilt. that's it.don't bring yours back. there good.id just suggest not taking them apart.quit prying at them cuz you never know what little you did may have broken the seal a bit. and you may now have a leak.

i agree its weird the seams aren't 100 percent visible but they are most likely milled/worn down from where ever they were rebuilt.

such misinformation that goes on on this forum makes me sick

hilux30. you come of as an arrogant know it all.just my .02 cent.dont care if you wanted to hear it or not.

ill agree that that caliper looks a little beat. but its aluminum.not iron.its softer metal. if you hit it hard enough. or even a bit. it will made an indentation.those little humps could just have been caused by handling

Modified by E7-S14 at 2:51 PM 8/18/2009

arrogant??? I was on the phone with a Autozone Rep ordering parts and inquiring about where those calipers, the commercial line who they know much better than the "standard" folk use, WTF is arrogant about that?? I'm trying to save this kids a** from putting cheap s*** on his car, I got a set of factory 30mm calipers on my bench right now I'll rebuild them and send to the author of this thread if he doen't see the differance between them I'll cut a finger off... how 'bout that b****es!?!

[killernoodle]

are u kidding me, I own a big shop and I know my venders, I have a 240 with Z32 TT brakes and they DO NOT LOOK LIKE THAT! plus I've been doing this s*** long enough not to half a** on brakes. And these are monoblocks as opposed to sliding calipers... anyways good luck with ur half a** brake job.

I'm glad you own a big shop and know your venders, but that doesn't spare you from being a complete moron.

Common sense tells you that a mono (single) block (piece) caliper is made from one piece of metal, not two bolted together.

For a comparison:



The monoblock is the one without the seam in the middle. It doesnt have a seam because its made from one piece of metal. It also doesn't have bolts holding it together for the same reason.

Sliding calipers only have pistons loaded on one side. They have the same effective piston area as a dual sided caliper with twice the number of pistons. But that is a completely different animal.

Z32 brake calipers are not monoblock, but they aren't sliding calipers either. Technically, most sliding piston calipers are monoblocks, but that is beyond this discussion.

As for how monoblocks get the fluid from one side to the other: some do it with an external tube going from one side to the other, others do it by drilling a channel through the material from one side of the cylinders to the other and then plugging the ends.

[tEknoS13]

Dude do NOT take them apart! I bought some REMAN z32 calipers from Murrays which is basically the same crap. The bolts came out nicely but when I tried putting them back in the threads began to strip. I do not know how they are held in but both my calipers where damaged. I worked there at the time so I simply took em back

I just painted them with Duplicolor caliper spray paint and this was the result.



They look very good, picture quality is crap though.

Modified by tEknoS13 at 9:59 PM 8/18/2009
Modified by tEknoS13 at 9:59 PM 8/18/2009

[JerseyS14]

So i think i'll just keep my china calipers and paint them gold... Hope they are not iron cause then i might just return them even though the weight difference is not enough to make my car float. Thanks a lot for your help guys... Thanks E7-S14 for the part numbers and info... i will probably get painting this weekend and install next weekend...

John

[E7-S14]

quit spewing china made calipers.there Nissan dammit with aftermarket rebuild parts dammit!

and NP man.just trying to spread the RIGHT information on this forum.hope yours comes out good man.all you need to do is good prep work as far as taping and cleaning.and let them dry/cure completely and you'll have a great finish such as mine and tEknoS13's

[hilux30]

I'm glad you own a big shop and know your venders, but that doesn't spare you from being a complete moron.

Common sense tells you that a mono (single) block (piece) caliper is made from one piece of metal, not two bolted together.

For a comparison:



The monoblock is the one without the seam in the middle. It doesnt have a seam because its made from one piece of metal. It also doesn't have bolts holding it together for the same reason.

Sliding calipers only have pistons loaded on one side. They have the same effective piston area as a dual sided caliper with twice the number of pistons. But that is a completely different animal.

Z32 brake calipers are not monoblock, but they aren't sliding calipers either. Technically, most sliding piston calipers are monoblocks, but that is beyond this discussion.

As for how monoblocks get the fluid from one side to the other: some do it with an external tube going from one side to the other, others do it by drilling a channel through the material from one side of the cylinders to the other and then plugging the ends.

they are both mono's stupid, just because one is split down the middle and the other is not with an external line, they are cast from one mold then cut..

[killernoodle]

they are both mono's stupid, just because one is split down the middle and the other is not with an external line, they are cast from one mold then cut..

They both have external lines to spread the brake fluid to both sides.

Also, you are still wrong. http://www.stoptech.com/tech_i...shtml

This is straight from the stoptech website:Quote »Some advertising is hyping the �monobloc� (i.e. machined from billet, cast, squeeze or semisolid forging or conventionally forged from one piece rather than two halves bolted together) as the final answer to braking problems. [/quote]Still don't believe me? Do an image search for monoblock (monobloc in other countries for some reason) caliper and see if you find one that is bolted together.

A picture is worth a thousand words:



Thats all I have to say about that, nooblet.
Modified by killernoodle at 7:27 AM 8/19/2009

[themadscientist]

Dam, beat me to it.

[safin]

they are both mono's stupid, just because one is split down the middle and the other is not with an external line, they are cast from one mold then cut..

so wheres your shop dude?

[spooled240]

They both have external lines to spread the brake fluid to both sides.

Also, you are still wrong. http://www.stoptech.com/tech_i...shtml

This is straight from the stoptech website:

Still don't believe me? Do an image search for monoblock (monobloc in other countries for some reason) caliper and see if you find one that is bolted together.

A picture is worth a thousand words:



Thats all I have to say about that, nooblet.

Modified by killernoodle at 7:27 AM 8/19/2009

[Chingon]

Want to put it to rest, to the OP, check for a "sumitomo" casting anywhere in the caliper. All calipers regardless of material have a sumitomo branding somewhere. There's no way sumitomo would liscence the patent to these to someone outside of their facilities and allow them to keep the brand on there. I think i've seen these still produced for the tundra and other toyotas but still under sumitomo.

The casting does look a little sketchy, but the branding should remove all doubt. Here, I'll even post pics:







yours seem to be aluminum from the casting (ribbed)

BTW: I expect my finger in the mail soon.

Modified by Chingon at 7:20 PM 8/19/2009
Modified by Chingon at 7:26 PM 8/19/2009

[JerseyS14]

Yea mine do say sumimoto...

[Chingon]

they are both mono's stupid, just because one is split down the middle and the other is not with an external line, they are cast from one mold then cut..

As a person with both an ME degree and a Sculpture degree (w/casting experience in lost wax and lost foam methods), that's just f***ing stupid dude. The molds required to cast these thinigs in one sitting are much harder to manufacture than those for half of the caliper. Not to mention the post machining. You would have an argument if there was evidence of fracture splitting these or tolerance matching, but the surfaces joining them are obviously machined after the casting making those points null.

Now, your shop's name and address? I want my finger too... you know what nvmd just shove it up your a**

PS: Autozone sales reps. are far from what one would call reliable sources of information.
Modified by Chingon at 7:53 PM 8/19/2009

[spooled240]

i think the shop is called a 3 car garage