(WARNING THIS IS LONG) Tony: I've got a 1997 Sentra, same brake set up as yours, if I'd left mine stock, I've got the Se-r calipers and cross drilled rotors up front, stainless steel braided brake lines all the way around, drums on the rear and I'm using Motul racing brake fluid 600. Any way, funny you should ask about your brakes just minutes ago I just put the finishing touches on a complete brake job at all four corners and still have to put the tires back on the car and get it off the jack stands and do a road test and break in the front pads. You don't happen to live close by San Diego California do you? If you do I'll be happy to lend you a hand in helping you get your brakes done. I've still got to get up to Torrance California and give Mike Young a hand with his brakes as I promised him I would, so if you live close by me or close by Torrance California I can swing by and help you out when Mike and I get done with his car. If your just looking to get a new set of brakes on your car and as you said you don't have a lot of money for all the extra's, the stock brakes are about as good as your going to get. If you want to do the complete brake job (correctly in my opinion), your going to have to get your rotors and drums turned so that you'll have a true surface for the disk brake pads and the rear brake shoes to press against when you hit the brake petal. I use a machine shop here locally to have my rotors and drums turned and they charge me $12.00 per rotor to turn them and $8.00 per rear drum to turn them, so it's $24.00 for the front rotors and $16.00 for the rear drums. Now that's the machine shop labor costs for me in my area. When I do a brake job on my Sentra I always use new complete brake hardware kits front and back from my local Nissan Dealership. I like the Nissan brake parts. The new caliper pistons cost $19.95 each (Nissan), caliper rebuild kits (seals/dust boots) were around $33.00 for both front calipers (Nissan). The rear brake shoes were around $36.00 (Nissan) the rear brake wheel cylinders I had to buy at Pep Boys as the local Nissan dealership was out at the time I was ready to do my brake job and I used Raybestos brand professional grade and I believe they cost around $19.95 each, these were the ones made in the USA and were the best ones that Pep Boys had for sale. At the time I bought the wheel cylinders, Pep Boys had three grades of rear wheel cylinders, one made in India at a cost of around $9.95, one made in Mexico at a cost of around $12.95 and the ones made in the USA, which I bought. I do not know what the difference was between the three, I just went with the ones made in the USA because they cost more and I figured they must be better made. The rear brake hardware kits have all new springs and rubber parts (not a rear wheel cylinder rebuild kit) and the cost was around $36.00 for both sides (Nissan) The Motul brake fluid was $9.95 each and I used 2 bottles (1.05 US pint size) so that I could assure myself that I had completely flushed all the old brake fluid from the brake lines and removed all the air in the brake lines and front calipers and rear wheel cylinders. Misc. things like brake parts cleaner cost appt. $3.00 per spray can I think I used 2 or 3 cans for the front and rear, after which I do something not normally done during a brake job, but I then hand wash in hot soapy water all parts after I've cleaned them with the brake parts cleaner to remove any residue left over from the brake parts cleaner and also the rotors and brake drums to remove any left over metal dust from the turning of the rotors and drums and completely dry them with high pressure air so the hand washing will not allow any rust to start. This is just the way I do things and it also gives me a chance to inspect each and every part going on to my Sentra during a complete brake job. The cross drilled rotors I used were AutoSpecialy brand and I think the cost was around $100.00 each. The stainless steel braided brake lines I bought from Brake Parts Ware House in Torrance California at a cost of $100.00 for all four plus UPS shipping and California sales tax (which I have forgotten the amount of now) I think the cost of the Stainless Steel braided brake lines have gone up in cost by $15.00 for the set sents I last bought mine. I also bought my front disk brake pads from them and I used Alexis Metal Master at a cost of about $45.00 to $55.00 for the front set. This is about as complete as to the different costs for my brake job as I can remember. You can get the parts a lot cheaper using different resource's like over the Internet at Car Parts.com or your local discount auto parts house's.Many of the parts I rebuilt (front calipers) or replaced (rear wheel cylinders) were not needed, it's just that this is the way I like to do things on my Sentra when I do a complete brake job. I hope this has been of some help to you, and like I said if your close by me and if I can help you out just let me know and we can work out a time and place to work on your brakes, to go into detail as to how to bleed the brakes would take up even more space and I'm sure by now many who are reading this are bored to death with this long post, you can find that information in a service/repair book that has pictures that will show you how to do this. Ron ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To unsubscribe, put "unsubscribe" (by itself) in the subject and send to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or use the form at <http://www.sentra.net/sml/>.
