Alright, so It's been a beautiful weekend; well almost.

I looked at the suspension bushings up front, and well they are soft/cracked and falling apart. Im going to pickup new bushings can anyone show me a link that allows you to get the whole front end done.

I recently had the car aligned and tires were rotated before hand.. I also hit black ice about 3-4 months ago when Winter was at its worst this year and smacked into a curb on the right passenger front before the car was aligned.

After I got the car aligned, all was well for a couple weeks and then I went on a good 50-60 mile cruise and started noticing the passenger front tire rubbing the rear of the wheel well when the wheel is turned to the right.

The wheel well makes contact with the Contact Patch on the tire and where it meets up with the sidewall, I need to get this fixed because you can see the well looks rubbed and this is causing a small peice of metal to be exposed from under the well.

The tire is also taking some damage, you can see small slits on the contact patch.

This only affects the passenger front while turning the wheel to the right and turning left to return to center..

Things Ive Done;

Jacked suspect side up and shook tire to see If I could get any freeplay.. I got no kinds of play when I rocked the tire at 3/6 nor at 12/6

I inspected the bushings(they need replaced) , CV Boots, Tie Rods, Ball Joints.. I didnt see no tears, evidence of loss of grease from the Boots, the tierods were tight and same with the balljoints.

it sounds to me like your control arm may have taken a beating. look at the form of the control arm, and try to find any small fractures or odd bends or ripples in the metal. also, look at the control arm mounts for damage of ANY kind.

i had to replace my passenger control arm, hub, bearing, strut, isolator cap, strut boot, and rotors.....all because the bearing was bad and it shook dangerously.

Yeah, I had a guy with some knowledge check It out before I made an appointment with my mechanic..

He seems to think the passenger side tire looks pushed back farther from the way It looks sitting with full load compared to the driver side where It looks normal.

He also noticed how the control arm, looked like It was flexing due to either soft bearings, or from when I had that accident on the large nut that holds the one side of it together.

Compared to the driver side; It looks like Its stressed, but Im no mechanic.

I made an appointment with my mechanic and Hes going to go over the front end and see what is going on, and replace whatever I need to get replaced. I get all my work done through him, so It always works out nice.

Thanks for the reply, Lights.. Ill let ya know what happens

pray that its just your control arm...b/c you don't wan to have to get your car on a Frame Alignment Machine...$$$$$...especially if the engine sub frame(i think that's what it's called) is damaged.

well LightsOut, you hit it right on the head.

It is the passenger front Lower Control Arm, it is bent. The mechanic said he pulled the tire off and under closer inspection, he noticed the problem. He also said the reason for them going through the alignment and not noticing it is because you really have to look at it from what he said. The alignment machine doesn't tell them about **** like that either, I guess its not to state of the art...

He said thats the only problem being the LCA, but he also wants $400 Parts+Labor that I do not have at the moment have been laid off for 3 months and finally returned to work. Great timing I guess

Heres his figures he wrote on the invoice;

$233.09 - Lower Control Arm$108.00 - Labor Costs$50.00 - FEA (???)

Total w/ Tax - $414.56

I can get a whole "USED" LCA from a Maxima through Ebay for $60, or a whole Brand New Assembly from Ebay for about $20 more..

In between a rock and a hard place now.. at this rate Im better off taking a stab at installing the damn thing myself.

you can order a control arm for much cheaper than that... but you will have to pay for the labor obviously...

Ebay route: (really not a bad choice)http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors...ZWDVW

or you can order it locally from an autozone or something like that... much cheaper

Yeah, the whole thing is even If I bought the part on my own he still wouldn't work on the car.

Feeds me some BS like If I dont buy the part from him he shouldn't be "hassled" with the labor of installing it. He basically wants me to pay $233 for something I can get way cheaper.

So, theres only like one more shop in town.. and I know they are more expensive.

So now I gotta find a how-to on how to do this myself..

I KNEW IT...you got lucky my friend b/c i'm going to help you out with my skills

i have pix on how i did my complete removal and replacement of the front right suspension.

i will create a HOW-TO over the next 4 days with detailed instructions of how i did everything.

The link that Gman8990 had doesn't have the aluminum housing for the rear rubber bearing. I wouldn't recommend buying it, find one with that aluminum piece. it should look more like this:



try calling your local Nissan Dealer and ask them about their price, b/c it comes with a new aluminum bearing housing already pressed on.

give me a little time to write up the HOW-TO.

oops...you have a 98 SE duh, i should've noticed that. He's got the right link you have a differents suspension set up than i do. Should i still do the write up

yeah, its a 98 SE.. That link that Gman hooked up seems to be the nicest one out of the other two I came across. I have a Hayne's Manual, I was reading over it during my lunch break at work and after I got home.. The replacement of the control arm seems pretty simple, as long as things are tightened in the right sequence and I have all the appropriate tools.

I don't have any air tools, would this be a requirement to do the job. Im all eyes on that how-to Lights, so at least I can get a general idea of the task ahead unless the suspensions are completely different. The Hayne's is pretty bleak on removal of things, but looks possible.

I just need to know what tools I need to purchase; Hayne's manual doesn't recommend using a Pickle Fork type of seperator, and thats all I can find. I have all the tools to put the car up in the air, I just need to know what the specific ones for the job are

Bought the LCA from the link provided by Gman, now what else could I possibly need.

Modified by MaXimaSE at 4:55 PM 4/3/2008
Modified by MaXimaSE at 5:15 PM 4/3/2008