Doing the Z32 Drum Brake Setup: A Step-by-Step Guide

As we work on our car's braking system, I wanted to take some time to explain how a drum handbrake works. The cable is hooked up to a little lever, and when this lever is pulled, the shoes expand outward. Normally, if you have a traditional disc brake, you have a caliper that clamps on the rotor or, as in our case, a drum brake that has shoes pressing against the inside of the brake rotor. The key difference between these two systems is how they apply pressure to stop the car.

One of the challenges we faced while working on this project was the design of the dust shield for the caliper. It appears that if this is the correct dust shield for this side, because it's only one side where the factory cutouts in the dust shield match up with the caliper points. You wouldn't make sense to take your measurements and cut out for the caliper on both sides. However, when we realized that the part was flopped backwards, we had to reposition it. This actually needed to go on the other side, which didn't match up with the mounting points of the calipers. We eventually decided to cut out even more areas in the dust shield and add new cuts over here.

In theory, you could just completely remove the dust shield, but I kind of like keeping it around for some reason. Maybe I'm just a creature of habit. Seeing comments from you guys about having to extend the oil pickup because of the fact that we have now a bigger oil pan is true. The factory oil pan comes down a little bit lower into the aftermarket pan that Alberto designed. If you notice, the pan that he designed actually goes no lower than the factory pan. This was a bit deceiving, but it means that the extra capacity doesn't come from being down farther; instead, it comes from these side pieces.

The engine bay is one area where we've been using a lot of random parts, like rubber seals and grommets, lines, and tire and rubber cleaner. The engine bay can get pretty grimy, but this stuff works really well. I'll be honest, it would be hard to show you the cleaning process in action while I'm working on it, but you can see how much of a difference it makes. Just a quick touch-up of paint on one of the calipers was enough to make me realize that I need to heat up the caliper before applying the paint.

I got a bit impatient and didn't do things exactly right, resulting in some fisheye on the painted area. As a perfectionist, I'll probably have to wet sand it to get it just right. It's not ideal, but I'm working hard to get everything together as fast as possible. The rear calipers were a bit of a challenge, but with patience and persistence, we're getting there.

One last thing to note is that we did have a pit stop early tomorrow morning to pick up something really cool – or should I say, two really cool things? You'll just have to stay tuned for that.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI'm so bummed I spent so long making my brakes look so nice and I was just a little lazy I guess and I put him on the trash can and dry out in the Sun and this one dive bombed the ground look at it poor brake got all chipped who's so close I got a package from Japan that I have to pick up in the post office so he thought it would only be appropriate to take commie skyline not because it's the only car here with a/c right now instant fog twin destroys sorts that feel like I'm in Japan she said your car singing you know I think she likes it I'm so pumped I was gonna be fenders or like a hood it's the little package I think it's just a girl bracket yeah wasted trip time for food Oh 32 bracket this is great I hope to see you again and if you find any item please feel free to contact me this is gonna be Easter Egg for the next person that rides in the car just chillin up here special delivery from the shermanator what are these since when do you have a Z why do you have these oh and these are heavy they don't break so a little rusty er then said in the post say what post your your Craigslist ad okay then showing doesn't break axes anymore I need something new to make fun of them so we got him a tiny little Frappuccino a tiny little cake pop it's good he likes it sloppy shift Schoelen tommy literally got this card just so you can listen to country music in the skyline true fact actually right come about it in the parking lot right now because the metal is so hot them sitting on the Sun then I can't put it on I'm gonna have to just do a quick speech dude it is literally like I'm gonna get a fifth degree burn got it I think no no you know it's not on so do I have to like push our do dude it's oh haha not funny getting ready for round two of the bedliner spray this time we're doing the rear end of the car a lot of spray some adhesion promoter on it before we do the bedliner whoops sorry Tommy Oh Adam caught me in my eye he literally direct shot me in my eye yes he did yes she did no no no I pulled the hopper off the gun to clean it look at this how crazy is that let's face it kind of reminds me like the texture like a we'll be fishing so we can use that stuff we can make mold I don't even understand like how are you supposed to clean this thing man was cleaning that gonna paint everything it was all gunked up in there but I spray the back real quick get a little coated all nice like two very important lessons were learned in the second installment of bed lining the fender wells of my car one I should wear long sleeve shirts in the future two should clean the gun better because the gun sucked and just didn't work well this time about three put stuff on the walls not paint but stuff so paint doesn't get on the walls it's a good thing it's only a super ultra rare white color that you can't buy other than in Japan so we're not gonna be able to match it I mean I guess at least it's protected all right how about is it dummy is it pretty bad yeah here so that's this tall can see if I call fatal just like flake off or something we just hit it with like a brush 1 2 hardens maybe I don't know you got to watch the builds you know how much I love this part we're gonna be working with good old drum brakes again yes we don't have to run these but it's nice having a parking brake in addition to a hydraulic handbrake thankfully the GK tech knuckles have a provision for it all we're gonna have to do is cut out this area the dust shield so the caliper can fit like this side I just got six really big odd boxes in my name at the door I was like what are these I don't remember ordering any of these they have my name on it I turn around and look at the box and I'm like oh you want to explain this to me Nicole what is this there's six of them means it's really six oh my gosh does every ticket come with that so is that something special I can't believe that the VIP baggage comes in this screen during this quick intermission we are about to prepare a delicious blue apron meal it's all about working smarter not harder guys this piece great technique blue apron or you haven't seen any of my videos where I've talked about them before they are sponsor of my videos and they deliver farm-fresh ingredients to your door along with recipes so you can make great food in addition to blue apron being flexible where you get to pick from 12 different recipes each week from our experience all the recipes are pretty flexible too or if you have an ingredient that you're not too crazy about or whatever very easy to modify something about food make a noise Justin really makes you feel like you know what you're doing if you're wondering where Nicole is right now she's in the other room she's still obsessing over her little tailor stuff things that she got in the mail so I want to be away from duty tonight there's no logical reason as to why I'm cooking Ellen now other than the fact that I'm too lazy to get an actual tripod and I'm using like one of those small ones so it's easier to get them in the frame this way and I feel like I can really like to see what's going on with the food a lot better their recipes are really cool and they make me step a little bit outside my comfort zone like these noodles that I've never used before and I'm having way too much fun ripping apart and here we have the final product very thankful that blue apron sponsored this video and you guys can check out this week's menu and get your first three meals free at blue apron comm /lz once again that's blue apron comm /lz courtesy of blue apron a better way to cook now we're gonna heat probably watch an episode of Netflix and we're gonna try to get a little bit more work done on that subframe I have a really detailed video on Nicole's car when we were doing the z32 drum brake setup on it where I go over everything and make up little names for all the little intricate parts and stuff so if you're interested in learning more about that I suggest watching that video in the meantime we are just going to do a quick time-lapse install to get this done fast very easy to explain how a drum handbrake works basically the cable just like a bike cable is hooked up to a little lever here and when this lever is pulled the shoes expand outward now normally if the traditional disc brake you have a caliper that clamps on the rotor or as brake drums you have shoes that will press against the inside of the brake rotor and will stop the car that way I'll go ahead and take this as my own stupidity but this little trick may help you if you're doing the same exact knuckle setup in the rear end of your car it appears if this is the correct dust shield for this side because it's only side where the factory cutouts in the dust shield match up with the caliper points so you wouldn't make sense and you take your measurements and you cut for the caliper here like I already did however when you get to assembly natural handbrake you'll realize this part down here is flopped backwards so this actually needs to go on the other side which works for the handbrake but then we realize it kind of sucks because the mounting points with the calipers do not match up with the cutout starting the dust shield so we're gonna have to cut out even more and then cut out new places over here so my other cuts and paint really worthless because I'm gonna have to do it again in theory you could just completely remove the dust shield which is probably what we should do but for whatever reason I kind of like keeping it I don't know why call me crazy maybe I'm just creature habit I saw some comments from you guys about having to extend the oil pickup because of the fact that we have now a bigger oil pan I guess one thing that we didn't point out since it is kind of deceiving the way that Alberto designed this the factory oil pan comes down a little bit lower into the aftermarket pan that he designed if you notice the pan that he designed actually goes no lower than the factory pan like I said it's just deceiving so he can use the same pickup the extra capacity doesn't come from being down farther it comes from these side pieces now obviously it's not done yet and he's gonna be adding in some baffles that are actually little trap doors to keep the oil from sloshing around and keeping it right where we need it but those come in tomorrow so that's why this is currently on hold when there is a detailed company that has the same name as you you can't help but support that so it isn't sponsored by atoms or anything although they have sent me a product in the past but I will tell you guys what we've been using a lot for a lot of the random like rubber seals and grommets and lines and the engine bay is their tire and rubber cleaner and it works really well it would be kind of hard to show you while I do it in the process but you can see how like kind of ugly and faded and cruddy this line looks this one right here just tire and rubber cleaner and it looks brand new just spent a little more time on it to get the subframe all ready to go up in tomorrow but I think I'm just gonna call tonight I got some sausage on my computer I've got it pretty much already and was about to start putting the calipers on then I decided to touch up the paint a little bit on one of the calipers and of course impatient me either from not heating up the caliper first or from not shaking the can well enough got some fisheye on one so that stinks and I'll probably have to wet saying it because I'm a perfectionist so don't make it look good anyway though thank you guys for watching I hope you're being patient I know it seems like a lot of unnecessary stuff and for me like I really thought that all this is what new stuff was really gonna take like one or two days but that's my unrealistic like timeline in my head but those of you guys that have done this before know we're working really hard and we're trying to get it together as fast as we can well as fast as we can but really really really really nice leave that stuff I think I like how it came out better in the front but thank you guys so much for watching we got a little pit stop we're gonna make early tomorrow morning to go pick up something really really cool or should I say two really really cool for skyline so see them to love me when you say when you say nobody knowsI'm so bummed I spent so long making my brakes look so nice and I was just a little lazy I guess and I put him on the trash can and dry out in the Sun and this one dive bombed the ground look at it poor brake got all chipped who's so close I got a package from Japan that I have to pick up in the post office so he thought it would only be appropriate to take commie skyline not because it's the only car here with a/c right now instant fog twin destroys sorts that feel like I'm in Japan she said your car singing you know I think she likes it I'm so pumped I was gonna be fenders or like a hood it's the little package I think it's just a girl bracket yeah wasted trip time for food Oh 32 bracket this is great I hope to see you again and if you find any item please feel free to contact me this is gonna be Easter Egg for the next person that rides in the car just chillin up here special delivery from the shermanator what are these since when do you have a Z why do you have these oh and these are heavy they don't break so a little rusty er then said in the post say what post your your Craigslist ad okay then showing doesn't break axes anymore I need something new to make fun of them so we got him a tiny little Frappuccino a tiny little cake pop it's good he likes it sloppy shift Schoelen tommy literally got this card just so you can listen to country music in the skyline true fact actually right come about it in the parking lot right now because the metal is so hot them sitting on the Sun then I can't put it on I'm gonna have to just do a quick speech dude it is literally like I'm gonna get a fifth degree burn got it I think no no you know it's not on so do I have to like push our do dude it's oh haha not funny getting ready for round two of the bedliner spray this time we're doing the rear end of the car a lot of spray some adhesion promoter on it before we do the bedliner whoops sorry Tommy Oh Adam caught me in my eye he literally direct shot me in my eye yes he did yes she did no no no I pulled the hopper off the gun to clean it look at this how crazy is that let's face it kind of reminds me like the texture like a we'll be fishing so we can use that stuff we can make mold I don't even understand like how are you supposed to clean this thing man was cleaning that gonna paint everything it was all gunked up in there but I spray the back real quick get a little coated all nice like two very important lessons were learned in the second installment of bed lining the fender wells of my car one I should wear long sleeve shirts in the future two should clean the gun better because the gun sucked and just didn't work well this time about three put stuff on the walls not paint but stuff so paint doesn't get on the walls it's a good thing it's only a super ultra rare white color that you can't buy other than in Japan so we're not gonna be able to match it I mean I guess at least it's protected all right how about is it dummy is it pretty bad yeah here so that's this tall can see if I call fatal just like flake off or something we just hit it with like a brush 1 2 hardens maybe I don't know you got to watch the builds you know how much I love this part we're gonna be working with good old drum brakes again yes we don't have to run these but it's nice having a parking brake in addition to a hydraulic handbrake thankfully the GK tech knuckles have a provision for it all we're gonna have to do is cut out this area the dust shield so the caliper can fit like this side I just got six really big odd boxes in my name at the door I was like what are these I don't remember ordering any of these they have my name on it I turn around and look at the box and I'm like oh you want to explain this to me Nicole what is this there's six of them means it's really six oh my gosh does every ticket come with that so is that something special I can't believe that the VIP baggage comes in this screen during this quick intermission we are about to prepare a delicious blue apron meal it's all about working smarter not harder guys this piece great technique blue apron or you haven't seen any of my videos where I've talked about them before they are sponsor of my videos and they deliver farm-fresh ingredients to your door along with recipes so you can make great food in addition to blue apron being flexible where you get to pick from 12 different recipes each week from our experience all the recipes are pretty flexible too or if you have an ingredient that you're not too crazy about or whatever very easy to modify something about food make a noise Justin really makes you feel like you know what you're doing if you're wondering where Nicole is right now she's in the other room she's still obsessing over her little tailor stuff things that she got in the mail so I want to be away from duty tonight there's no logical reason as to why I'm cooking Ellen now other than the fact that I'm too lazy to get an actual tripod and I'm using like one of those small ones so it's easier to get them in the frame this way and I feel like I can really like to see what's going on with the food a lot better their recipes are really cool and they make me step a little bit outside my comfort zone like these noodles that I've never used before and I'm having way too much fun ripping apart and here we have the final product very thankful that blue apron sponsored this video and you guys can check out this week's menu and get your first three meals free at blue apron comm /lz once again that's blue apron comm /lz courtesy of blue apron a better way to cook now we're gonna heat probably watch an episode of Netflix and we're gonna try to get a little bit more work done on that subframe I have a really detailed video on Nicole's car when we were doing the z32 drum brake setup on it where I go over everything and make up little names for all the little intricate parts and stuff so if you're interested in learning more about that I suggest watching that video in the meantime we are just going to do a quick time-lapse install to get this done fast very easy to explain how a drum handbrake works basically the cable just like a bike cable is hooked up to a little lever here and when this lever is pulled the shoes expand outward now normally if the traditional disc brake you have a caliper that clamps on the rotor or as brake drums you have shoes that will press against the inside of the brake rotor and will stop the car that way I'll go ahead and take this as my own stupidity but this little trick may help you if you're doing the same exact knuckle setup in the rear end of your car it appears if this is the correct dust shield for this side because it's only side where the factory cutouts in the dust shield match up with the caliper points so you wouldn't make sense and you take your measurements and you cut for the caliper here like I already did however when you get to assembly natural handbrake you'll realize this part down here is flopped backwards so this actually needs to go on the other side which works for the handbrake but then we realize it kind of sucks because the mounting points with the calipers do not match up with the cutout starting the dust shield so we're gonna have to cut out even more and then cut out new places over here so my other cuts and paint really worthless because I'm gonna have to do it again in theory you could just completely remove the dust shield which is probably what we should do but for whatever reason I kind of like keeping it I don't know why call me crazy maybe I'm just creature habit I saw some comments from you guys about having to extend the oil pickup because of the fact that we have now a bigger oil pan I guess one thing that we didn't point out since it is kind of deceiving the way that Alberto designed this the factory oil pan comes down a little bit lower into the aftermarket pan that he designed if you notice the pan that he designed actually goes no lower than the factory pan like I said it's just deceiving so he can use the same pickup the extra capacity doesn't come from being down farther it comes from these side pieces now obviously it's not done yet and he's gonna be adding in some baffles that are actually little trap doors to keep the oil from sloshing around and keeping it right where we need it but those come in tomorrow so that's why this is currently on hold when there is a detailed company that has the same name as you you can't help but support that so it isn't sponsored by atoms or anything although they have sent me a product in the past but I will tell you guys what we've been using a lot for a lot of the random like rubber seals and grommets and lines and the engine bay is their tire and rubber cleaner and it works really well it would be kind of hard to show you while I do it in the process but you can see how like kind of ugly and faded and cruddy this line looks this one right here just tire and rubber cleaner and it looks brand new just spent a little more time on it to get the subframe all ready to go up in tomorrow but I think I'm just gonna call tonight I got some sausage on my computer I've got it pretty much already and was about to start putting the calipers on then I decided to touch up the paint a little bit on one of the calipers and of course impatient me either from not heating up the caliper first or from not shaking the can well enough got some fisheye on one so that stinks and I'll probably have to wet saying it because I'm a perfectionist so don't make it look good anyway though thank you guys for watching I hope you're being patient I know it seems like a lot of unnecessary stuff and for me like I really thought that all this is what new stuff was really gonna take like one or two days but that's my unrealistic like timeline in my head but those of you guys that have done this before know we're working really hard and we're trying to get it together as fast as we can well as fast as we can but really really really really nice leave that stuff I think I like how it came out better in the front but thank you guys so much for watching we got a little pit stop we're gonna make early tomorrow morning to go pick up something really really cool or should I say two really really cool for skyline so see them to love me when you say when you say nobody knows\n"