So this afternoon I swapped my rear drums to disc off a SE parts car I got, not at all as difficult as some have said. Anyway, I have been told that the SE springs are stiffer, but I wasn't so sure. But they are in fact marked differently, Red/Pink painted marks on GXE and Green on SE. Also I notice that SE strut mounts are rather different than GXE. The SE mount have much more rubber in them. I guess a more solid but louder mount.
I have yet to drive the car to see if there is much difference in handling( car is still on jack stands). But I will report back later today.

 

heh, how many of the exhaust heatshield and ebrake bolts did you snap? I snapped a few when i did my disc swap

 

None actually. Sorry, but that's the greatness of southern cars.

 

man, you're lucky. my car must have left the state at some point, but it was originally sold in NC.. but i had a decent amount of rust on my exhaust components and on those sort of nuts under the car.

 

Well the ride does seem stiffer with the SE springs, but that might be the struts. I was still running original/factory/january 1989 struts in the back. But now I have some kybs. The originals were surprisingly not completely gone, but the car only has 129k miles.
I also swapped the exhaust off the SE. First time I've driven the car with a muffler on it, so quiet!
Although the brakes work exactly the same, big surprise right?

 

U didnt feel any difference in brakes? I have my gxe parked i was thinking of doing the swap but i think drums r better , easy to take care of and dont have to change for long time

 

at 129k they are completely gone, you just don't realize it.
brakes should work very similarly whether they are all wheel disc or rear drum. it is in panic situations that the 4 wheel disc make a real difference.

 

From what i have seen and heard, 4 wheel disc on many cars is just for looks. So I didn't expect much. Drums have much, much more pad material. The rear brake pad size on the maxima is pathetic. My first gen MR2 (2100 pound car) has much larger calipers and pads than my Maxima (3100 pounds).

While I was at it I replaced the front pads. I ordered "premium" pads and received organic pads, not really what I wanted. Should I go semi-metallic or invest in ceramic? I did get ceramic for the rear.

 

You should go hawk hps pads all around..

 

unless you're talking about the musical instrument... then i must bestow upon you a big fat

anyhow... if you want to make up for the small pads in the rear.. just upgrade to z31 rotors (need 89-90 inner brackets and 91-94 calipers/cables/pads.. however you gotta do it). My a33b/z31 setup will definitely pull my guts forward... when i stomp on it. I'm still battling pedal feel despite multiple bleedings but in emergency situations.. i can stop in a hurry.

 

 

^^^ those are the 89-90 brackets i speak of. if you did a rear disc swap on a GXE using the rear struts from an 89-90 then you just need the calipers and torqme members (pad bracket) from a 91-94. if you have the 91-94 stuff you just pull the hub, and just swap the inner brackets pictured above

 

still gots some rear brackets left jeffro?

 

I learned today that northern cars with rust all over the rear drum makes even changing the HARDWARE difficult.. We spent over 4 hours on ONE SIDE!! in the rear. We had to keep swapping tools and all PITA.

We had to keep swapping tools because we ended up having to take the entire HUB off just to take off the wheel cylinder (Chevy Cavalier) man those bottom bolts took an hour cuz as a last resort we had to heat it up real good...

 

Nope. But I can have them made. But I need 5-6 guys to confirm before I get another batch going. They tend to sit.

 

price?

 

I think it was $75 shipped the last time around. But I couldn't say for sure until I price out a new batch.

 

I had a f250 superduty kick my *** last week, I spent so long bleeding and bleeding before I realized that the parts place gave me a passenger side rear caliper. With the e-brake style rear calipers they won't interchange, but on that truck they were the same side to side except for the bleeder location, and you kinda need the bleeder at the top.....

Master cylinders can go bad during bleeding if you over-extend it the cup will roll over when it hits corrosion that is past the normal travel, but that tends to cause a complet failure of the master. Check for leaks maybe? Just throwing some ideas out there.

60% of the time they stop all the time

 

you should have pm'd me..

 

I would have but morgan freeman was right down the street anyways

 

What?

 

i don't lose any fluid, but i can bottom the pedal out more easily than should be possible, and the pedal is too soft. all my calipers are in the correct positions, none of them are the original calipers on the car either. i adjusted my brake mcyl clevis rod to get rid of freeplay, but the freeplay came back after almost no time at all.

 

Are the calipers actually different or just the caliper bracket?

 

Wanna take your 4 wheel disk brake equipped vehicle to a "rolling road" type brake test machine that can supply brake torque figures experienced per wheel and confirmed that notion? .................... and then go back and repeat the process and compare the reliability of a disk brake system with a drum brake system with all the components soaking wet?

ITO feel/consistency/balance/feedback etc I would rate my VG's braking system setup very close to 100% for this particular vehicle (even sans ABS) - and that includes the original small rear pads/calipers

 

the calipers and ebrake cables are different... tho it's possible that the ONLY reason the calipers are different is because of the ebrake cable fittings. if you want to test and see if 89-90 calipers will work with 91-94 tqmembers and 89-90 inner brackets, it would be nice info to know, for those people who are thinking about doing the z31 upgrade on their 89-90 SE (or GXE w/ ABS)..

 

the 91-94 strut bracket is shorter than the 89-90 piece

 

I just saw you are in Raleigh. I'm in Charlotte. So where do 3rd genners like us Carolina boys go for good bone yards OR is there an NC Maxima group/club?

 

i know that, i meant JUST the caliper body from 89-90, if it might fit on the 91-94 torque member. i just played it safe, and got calipers, torque members, ebrake cables, and pads off a 91-94 but perhaps the only thing you REALLY need from the 91-94 is just the tqmember... everything eles MIGHT just fit fine, but i've never tried it.

 

there's no real maxima club that i'm aware of in NC. There is a group called Carolina Nissans but i'm not a member nor have i ever been to a meet, but some guys that i met in OT have been to the meets. The best JY i've been to in NC is in charlotte tho haha. It's on N Tryon St.

 

There is more than just that for difference. The calipers are larger and so are the pads.

 

89 caliper:

93 caliper:

as Jon pointed out, the pads themselves are different as well.

 

i see... i figured there was a reason why nobody'd done it that way before. guess that's a 'thing i learned today'