[seattletazman]

So I found out the hard way there are 2 parking brake shoe sizes for ’04 FX35 ( Not sue if it’s the same for all years 03’- 08’) 6.75” and 7.46”. It cost me $67 ? for the R/T Uber ride and $60 extra for the service bay rental while I was traveling to get correct part. My car was in the air, rear brakes all apart and once I compared the old parking brake shoes and new ones I found out I had wrong size. So here was my dilemma... Do I put the brakes back together along with bleeding brake lines, put all four tires back on cause I was doing complete brake job i.e. calipers rotors pads and shoes, or bite the bullet leave the car on the rack and take an Uber to get right part. Biggest bummer is you don’t know what size shoes you have until you have the rotor off. It’s not like you have FX45 vs FX35 so you would know your rear parking brakes are big set or small set.
Moral of the story is order both sizes 6.75” and 7.46” and simply return set that doesn’t fit. Problem solved.

 

[wubbalubbadubdub]

This is sound advice and I can confirm its true and there doesn't seem to be a clear cut answer for what vehicles have which parking brakes.

Rock Auto's listing suggests that 03-05 should have the smaller 6.75" parking brake shoes and 06+ and even S51s should have the 7.46" ones
However, this is not a clear designation as I have a 2005 with the larger 7.46" ones. The build date on my 2005 is 02/05 according to the sticker on the door jamb which would be a fairly late build for a 2005 so that might be why.

This is also extremely critical because if you are replacing rotors, you have to get the correct rotors to match

What parking brake shoes does your 04 have and what is it's build date? It might have nothing to do with anything and there may not be a cutoff for what vehicles got which setup.



I am diving deep into this because the more I learn about the rear brakes on these FM platform cars, the more I am convinced that it is possible to swap the akebono sport brakes onto the rears of these s50 FXs simply by trimming the dust shield and selecting the correct sport rotor (g37/370z vs FX50) based on parking brake size. Yes I know its been tried in the past but this parking brake variable likely wasn't known back then by the early adopters.

 

[seattletazman]

Yea mine were the big ones, never use them at all, but didn’t want to run around with one side of the shoes on the passenger side all rusted up and collecting more rust. Mines an 04 but I’m not sure if the tech package and tour package had anything to do with the larger shoes.
That parking brake enclosure sure isn’t water tight, I can say that for sure. I have never seen a shoe pad fall off like that.

 

[wubbalubbadubdub]

Yea mine were the big ones, never use them at all, but didn’t want to run around with one side of the shoes on the passenger side all rusted up and collecting more rust. Mines an 04 but I’m not sure if the tech package and tour package had anything to do with the larger shoes.
That parking brake enclosure sure isn’t water right I can say that for sure. I have never seen a shoe pad fall off like that.

Im thinking the bigger ones are actually the correct or at least common ones for FX. Rock auto lists 03-05 as having the smaller parking brake shoes but they list the same rotors for all s50 years 03-08. Last time I ordered rotors, they fit but if I had ordered shoes from them they would be wrong just like yours. So their listing for parking brake shoes has to be wrong. Other places may have the same wrong listings.

This is frustrating for me as well because I was using the parking shoe listings for trying to figure out a compatible rear akebono sport rotor to use that doesn’t require replacing the entire spindle to do the big brake upgrade on the rear. G/Z/M cars all use the smaller parking brake shoes. The FX50 does share the same larger shoes as FX37 and even our first gen 35/45 FXs. Maybe the fx50 rotor will fit with just cutting the dust shield but idk now.

 

[seattletazman]

I bought slotted drilled and slotted rotors so I got plenty of braking force. Never thought of a brake upgrade, but this is the place to find out what works. I’m sure there is plenty of people that are following your path.

 

[Daniel123588]

Aloha,
I know some of these threads are a little old but it was very helpful when doing my research and also raised confusion as well. Just want to provide some info to try and contribute a little.

Anyhow, my fx is a 2005 and the inner diameter of the rear rotor is shy of 7.5".

Hope this helps even a little for others.