Z32 brake problem.

[ZakinaS13]

I'm in the process of swapping Z32 brakes on my S13 and everything's went extremely smooth until I everything was done.Started off using the 240sx MC. Pedal went to the floor.Bled the brakes again, still nothing.

Noticed bubbles coming up through the MC after pumping the brakes and letting off again. I've bled and bled and bled. Changed calipers, new 240sx MC, used Z MC, all the MC do the same thing.Blocked off the front brakes and bled the rear again. Perfect pedal!Hooked the passenger side up, Perfect pedal!Hooked the drivers side up, (now all lines are installed again)Squish! all the way down again.

Changed the drivers side caliper and blocked off the passenger side while leaving the rear hooked up. Perfect pedal again.Installed the passenger side once again. Squish, all the way back down.

Basically, with everything hooked up the front brakes aren't working correctly. There are no leaks from the calipers. Or any of the lines from what I can see.I've ran out of idea's on what it could be. Tomorrow I'm installing brand new rubber lines on both sides.

A friend called me today while he was trying to figure it out. After he changed passenger side calipers again. He was backing out of the garage and the pass. side wheel locked up..... ?

Between the both of us, we've replaced everything twice. Except for the rubber lines.

Does anyone have the foggiest?Excuse me for the novel!

[poshatch]

I'm in the process of swapping Z32 brakes on my S13 and everything's went extremely smooth until I everything was done.Started off using the 240sx MC. Pedal went to the floor.Bled the brakes again, still nothing.

Noticed bubbles coming up through the MC after pumping the brakes and letting off again. I've bled and bled and bled. Changed calipers, new 240sx MC, used Z MC, all the MC do the same thing.Blocked off the front brakes and bled the rear again. Perfect pedal!Hooked the passenger side up, Perfect pedal!Hooked the drivers side up, (now all lines are installed again)Squish! all the way down again.

Changed the drivers side caliper and blocked off the passenger side while leaving the rear hooked up. Perfect pedal again.Installed the passenger side once again. Squish, all the way back down.

Basically, with everything hooked up the front brakes aren't working correctly. There are no leaks from the calipers. Or any of the lines from what I can see.I've ran out of idea's on what it could be. Tomorrow I'm installing brand new rubber lines on both sides.

A friend called me today while he was trying to figure it out. After he changed passenger side calipers again. He was backing out of the garage and the pass. side wheel locked up..... ?

Between the both of us, we've replaced everything twice. Except for the rubber lines.

Does anyone have the foggiest?Excuse me for the novel!

what a pain in the A..

just to get this out of the way, id reccomend getting SS lines instead of rubber if you are ordering them

a locked caliper is no good so i guess my suggestion wasnt going to work anymore but ill say it anyway

with the z32 front brakes on and the 240sx MC its going to feel like junk, most pedals dont return imediate pedal feel even if they are blead correctly, they need to be boosted and for awhile to be worked in in order to feel the correct pressure

bubbles from MC ive NEVER HEARD happen before that boggles me

id suggest after you get the SS lines or rubber lines that you keep the z32 master cylinder install the lines, and the non locked caliper, bleed it boosted and even if the pedal feel isnt imidiate have a buddy spind the wheels or slowly back up (after blead and pushing on the pedal for awhile) and see if they even stop the car, if they do then probably just drive slowly a bit and work them in to correct feel

[DuckyD]

This is probably a stupid question, but on both calipers the bleed screws are on top... right?

I just sold some Z32 calipers to a kid and he was wanting to return them, come to find out he mounted them opposite (which is obviously up side down).

[poshatch]

This is probably a stupid question, but on both calipers the bleed screws are on top... right?

I just sold some Z32 calipers to a kid and he was wanting to return them, come to find out he mounted them opposite (which is obviously up side down).

no such thing as a stupid quesetion

yea correctly is the bleeder on top but them being on the bottom wouldnt effect it much only thing that could possibly come into trouble is the actual brake soft line might not be long enough on full lock or something but even that i doubt

he wanted to return them? haha like its target or something lol funny yeah just tell him to put them on the right way i just followed the write up on the 240 tech page

[DuckyD]

no such thing as a stupid quesetion

yea correctly is the bleeder on top but them being on the bottom wouldnt effect it much only thing that could possibly come into trouble is the actual brake soft line might not be long enough on full lock or something but even that i doubt

he wanted to return them? haha like its target or something lol funny yeah just tell him to put them on the right way i just followed the write up on the 240 tech page

Yea man, he had the left on the right side and vice-versa. He kept bleeding and kept bleeding and couldn't figure it out. He had really soft brake pedal and he said the car would just barely come to a rolling stop with full brake pedal. It didn't help that he had previously stripped the hardlines (on the chassis, I had to sell him new ones) and didn't teflon anything (although you probably don't have to). He said he spent like 6 hours bleeding the brakes over the course of several days.

Now I stand behind the stuff that I sell so I was about to give him his money back and turn around and sell them again (sold him 30mm aluminum with new seals and used rotors for $100, he got a good deal). But when I saw how they were mounted I just started laughing

[C2CAHOON]

the bleeder screws do make a difference, there mounted on the top of the caliper to allow air to rise to top to be bled properly.

and for the master cylinder issues i recommend purchasing a vacuum pump designed for bleeding brakes, an inexpensive one would only set you back 20-30 bucks and you start with the passenger left, drivers right, then the passenger front and drivers front.

Also make sure the master cylinder your using is bled before you try to bleed the brakes, do this by putting a small piece of brake line with a rubber tube attach in the cylinders port, put the rubber tube in the resivoir and SLOWY pump the brakes down to the floor. the bubbles in the cylinder usally come from air trapped in the quick take up valve or compensation valve

[DuckyD]

...and you start with the passenger left, drivers right, then the passenger front and drivers front.

To be technical, the rear driver side on USDM models is the furthest brake caliper from the master. The lines run down the passenger side frame rail making the back left (driver side) the furthest. So it would be left rear (driver rear), right rear (pass rear), right front (pass front), then left front (driver front).

Either way will get the job done.

[ZakinaS13]

Working 2 jobs 6 days a week. I have very little time to actually work on my car. The guy that's doing the swap just told me that the bleeders are on bottom. I'll get those swapped around and I pray to god this works. This problem has really kicked my a$$..

Does this really matter that much? Most calipers have the bleeders on bottom anyway. Brembo.. Wilwood... ?
Modified by ZakinaS13 at 9:51 AM 3/20/2010

[DuckyD]

The guy that's doing the swap just told me that the bleeders are on bottom. Does this really matter that much? Most calipers have the bleeders on bottom anyway. Brembo.. Wilwood... ?

+1 Ducky

And the bleeder screw is always on top.The reason being is that you are bleeding air from the system, and air raises, therefore the bleeder screw needs to be at the top (where the air is).

What's happening is this: Air is compressible, brake fluid is not. When you are hitting the brakes, you are compressing the air in the system instead of applying pressure to the brake caliper pistons.

[ZakinaS13]

Yep, great brakes all around now. That fixed them! Thanks all! Now to install the Z ebrakes..

[rocksteady_racer]

If you need help with e-brake install I can help. I just finally got mine installed right (well except the drum brake adjustment which I don't feel like doing yet but both sides are the same so I just tightened the e-brake handle til they locked right). I'm running porterfield e-brake shoes and I got some brackets off here so they fit perfectly but you can make your own with a drill press and a 1/4in piece of metal. If you do make your own, make sure you drill seperate holes for the e-brake cable to lock in to so that way it doesn't shift while your pulling it. You could go hydraulic but personally I think it's a waste of money unless you actually use yours consistently to drift - I prefer power overs, inertia drifts, clutch kicks, pretty much anything other than the e-brake to initiate but I do use it to control the slide .

[ZakinaS13]

Yeah, I only use the ebrake for parking and playing around. I'm thinking about taking the old cables to a fab shop and having just a 1pc. cable made.

[rocksteady_racer]

Well I mean that's a good idea - but the brackets even over priced one's that I bought on here (not because of quality but rather everyone was like make your own who aren't lazy like I am lol) are amazing and they were only 40$ shipped. But that's up to you. If the shop is cheaper than 40$, go for it. The brackets tighten it right up. You might have to replace the shoes on the e-brake though - mine were burned to the bone almost - and it's more of a shop job - my porterfield's were a carbon kevlar weave - i had to send them the arms over at rpsport when they were doing e-brake business and they glued them together for about 110$. I just didn't want to have to go through the trouble of taking everything apart down the road so I installed the shoes ahead of time and carbon kevlar work fine for parking and 180s but you just have to heat them up to grip if you were going to use it constantly to drift. Also you know you've gotta take apart the whole back hub to install - a little annoying. Also make sure to use a flat screwdriver to bend the outside of the e-brake shield because mine didn't fit perfectly around the rotor without rubbing til I did that. But I didn't have to cut mine on the s13 like everyone else says you have to.

[ZakinaS13]

My shields fit fine, no cutting required. When I got my Z kit, the ebrake cables were cut so I was trying to fab a quick fix by clamping the stock cable to the Z cable but that was kinda shotty. I must say, other than the calipers being installed on opposite sides. My brake upgrade, 5 lug hub swap, struts and springs all went extremely smooth. Now with the exception of the ebrake cables. Almost time to prep the KA24DE engine....

[rocksteady_racer]

Ha I had the same thing - everything went too smoothly lol. J/k but I haven't had any problems except my tension rod bushings were almost gone so the excessive clamping force of the z brakes would yank the wheel to one side until I replaced them. Yea clamps should work fine. Did you use ichiba hubs? if so or you used 300z hubs or something I would recommend replacing the bearings with oem nissan ones. My ichiba hub bearings went in less than 1500 miles.

[rocksteady_racer]

Ignore this post

[ZakinaS13]

Ha I had the same thing - everything went too smoothly lol. J/k but I haven't had any problems except my tension rod bushings were almost gone so the excessive clamping force of the z brakes would yank the wheel to one side until I replaced them. Yea clamps should work fine. Did you use ichiba hubs? if so or you used 300z hubs or something I would recommend replacing the bearings with oem nissan ones. My ichiba hub bearings went in less than 1500 miles.

I using direct bolt-on hubs. If they don't work out, I'll try some others..

[rocksteady_racer]

Yea well whatever hubs you use the easiest way to tell if the wheel bearing is bad is to have the car jacked up on whatever wheel your testing then just try to wiggle the wheel and if it wobbles even though it's bolted on that means the wheel bearing is bad. Make sure you put the washer back in there otherwise you'll damage them when you installed them - it looks like a circle with a square in the middle.

[kaane21]

can anyone here give me a hand.. i just finished swapping in z Brakes, BMC, and Booster, but when i put the wheels back on the car i used a pry bar to apply the brakes so the hub doesnt move... but i notice the pass side isnt applied and the hub still spins, then I start to take the car on a test drive i find the drivers front wheel, is locked up. I crack open the bleeder valve to relieve pressure but it locks back up...i bled the brakes and grav bled the MC, still locks up i'm using a 1in BMC... so if anyone ran into problem or knows wat the problem is please lemme kno... thanx

[tdoolin]

Yep, great brakes all around now. That fixed them! Thanks all! Now to install the Z ebrakes..

jw how you fixed it i'm having a similar problem with my s14 i have z32's up front and i just rebuilt the front calipers and replaced the rotors, but when i bleed them it was a straight stream of fluid and the pedal wasnt getting any stiffer then bleed the rears the pedal started to stiffen up the went back to the front and if felt like everything was finally going right. i brought it down off the lift and started it and my pedal goes straight to the floor. there is a wierd squeeking noise that sounds like its coming from the master cylinder. i just posted a thread in here asking about master cylinders but i just wanna make sure thats the problem