Brakes

Brakes are pretty important. Here's how you change the brakes on your 300ZX: (This is specifically for 84-86, 87-89 models are slightly different, but the general procedure is the same)

Front

  1. Jack up the front of the car and remove the wheels.
  2. Remove the two 14mm(I think) bolts that secure the calipers to the floating mounting pins, pull the caliper off of the rotor, away from the center.
  3. Pull the old pads out of the bracket, along with the shims.
  4. Remove the two 17mm(I think) bolts that hold the caliper bracket onto the strut and remove the bracket(If removing rotor)
  5. 87 and later models have larger twin piston calipers which do not have sliding pins. When these calipers are removed, the rotor slides right off.
  6. Pry off the bearing dust cap, cut off the cotter pin and remove the bolt cover thing that keeps the bearing nut from coming off and pull the rotor off(If removing rotors of course)
  7. Have rotor ground, not turned if it needs it.
  8. If rotors don't need to be ground, break the surface glaze with sandpaper or something.
  9. Thoroughly clean bearings and repack them, I like Mobil synthetic grease, it's red and works really well.
  10. Replace rotor and tighten bearings as per manual.
  11. Replace caliper bracket and tighten bolts.
  12. Place shims in bracket and insert pads.
  13. With a large clamp squeeze piston back into caliper.
  14. Clean and regrease caliper pins and their guides.
  15. Replace caliper, sliding it over the pads and tighten bolts.
  16. Replace wheels and break pads in.

Rear

  1. Jack up rear of car and remove wheels.
  2. Remove the two bolts that hold the caliper to the floating pins, if you pull the parking brake cable an inch or two through it's guibe on the underside of the suspension arm towards the rear of the car, you can get the pads out and rotors off w/o loosening the cable, trust me on this one.
  3. Remove pads and shims from caliper bracket.
  4. If rotor needs to be turned, remove the two 17mm bolts that hold the bracket to the car and remove bracket, rotor will now slide off.
  5. Clean and repack caliper mounting pins with good grease.
  6. Replace rotor and bracket if they were removed.
  7. If not, break glaze on rotor with sandpaper.
  8. Place shims and pads in bracket.
  9. With a pair of needle nose pliers, screw the piston back into the caliper, hold the pliers open, putting each nose of the pliers into opposite slits on the piston and screwing it back in. Can be frustrating.
  10. Slide caliper back over pads and rotors.
  11. Replace caliper bolts.
  12. Replace wheels.
Do's and don'ts:
  1. Do use good grease on your wheel bearings and mounting pins.
  2. Do use good quality(name brand) brake fluid.
  3. Do not step on brake pedal unless calipers are mounted.
  4. Do not hang calipers by the brake lines.
  5. Do Bleed your brakes
  6. Do realize that you will have to pump the brake pedal a few times to get the pads against the rotors after a brake job.



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