Maxima spring/strut replacement.4th & 5th Gen.

The club for Nissan Maxima and Infiniti I30 / I35 owners, and the official home of Maxima Club of America!
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Beancooker
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IMPORTANT SAFETY WARNING!!! DO NOT PROCEED UNTIL YOU READ THIS!!!

Automotive springs are under an incredible amount of pressure when compressed in the strut assembly. Serious injury or death may occur if you are not careful. DO NOT remove the center nut in the strut assembly until the springs are completely compressed.If the spring compressors slip while compressing, BE VERY CAREFUL and slowly decompress spring.When starting to compress springs, make sure compressors are equally spaced on the spring.

When torquing the center nut on the strut, do not hold the smooth part of the cartridge with pliers or anything that may scratch the metal. This will cause your seals to wear prematurely. The top of the threads should have one side cut out so you can grip it there.

Personally I used Eibach Springs (pro kit) and Tokico Illumina struts. I reused the spring seats and strut mount brackets.

Here are the basics on installing springs and shocks: Equipment: Jack stands, breaker bar, spring compressor, metric sockets and torque wrench.

1. Remove the front tire. Remove the two 17mm bolts at the bottom of the front shock assembly. The nuts are 19mm. Open the hood and remove the three 14mm bolts at the top of the shock tower.

2. Once the bolts have been removed take out the shock assembly. Note which way the upper spring seat is directed. The notch needs to point out when you reassemble.

3. Install the spring compressors. One on either side of the spring and tighten. Tighten them alternately to avoid spring tilt. 4. When springs are compressed remove the large nut at the top of the shock assembly. DO NOT REMOVE THE NUT AT THE TOP OF THE SHOCK ASSEMBLY WITHOUT THE SPRING COMPRESSORS INSTALLED.

5. Take apart the shock assembly and be sure to layout the parts on the floor. Keep them in order so it will be easy to reassemble.

6. Cut the bump stop. I trimmed about 1 ½ inches off.

7. When swapping out the spring be sure that the lettering on the spring is not upside down. Install the spring on the shock assembly so that you can read the lettering. The lettering represents the top so you don't install them upside down.

8. Depending on what springs you bought, you may (probably will) need to compress the new springs.

9. Put the shock assembly back together and install the center nut. Make sure that you have the upper spring seat in the correct direction before decompressing the springs. The notch will point out.

10. After the center nut is torqued, then carefully release the compressors.

11. Reinstall the shock assembly and torque the top and bottom bolts to spec. Top strut tower bolts are 30-40 ft-lbs. The front lower bolts are to be torqued to 110 ft-lbs. 12. Repeat the same procedure for the rear install. There are two 12mm rear strut bolts per side. They get torqued to 12-14 ft-lbs or hand tightened. The lower rear shock bolt is a 17mm. The nut is fixed to the suspension. The torque spec. for the rear bolt is 80 ft-lbs.

Here are some pics for parts reference.





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dr-rjp
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Two things worth mentioning here:

First, the upper spring seat is also called a "top hat" or "upper strut perch." In the second illustration (SFA664A), there should also be the words, "OUT," stamped on it which, like the cutout, should face towards the fender (I'm not sure that "Outer side" describes where it should point).

Secondly, the spring sleeves are not shown. These vinyl tubes slide over the top and bottom ends of the spring to prevent metal-on-metal contact.

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Nissan6Maxima
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Car: 1998 Nissan Maxima SE

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My tien struts aren't ride type changeable. For some reason the suspension gets destroyed during every day driving from any crack in the road. It can be felt all over the car. Any info on what the problem is? shock displacement and should re-do it? not sure how to go about fixing this.

canucklehead
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Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2008 1:14 pm
Car: 1994 Nissan Maxima GXE

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I have a 94 maxima and I need to replace all of my struts (front and rear). my coils are fine. i just want something stock, not performance. So do these instructions apply to my vehicle, or am I a different generation?

What are the rears like to do?

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PBfrEAk
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canucklehead wrote:I have a 94 maxima and I need to replace all of my struts (front and rear). my coils are fine. i just want something stock, not performance. So do these instructions apply to my vehicle, or am I a different generation?

What are the rears like to do?
Your car is a 3rd gen. But these are sort-of the same type of directions.

To be safe...just look here...=> http://www.nicoclub.com/FSM/maxima/1994

Look under FA for front suspension and RA for rear suspension.

bruno607
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Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 6:21 am
Car: 2001 Nissan Maxima 20th Anniv Ed 5 Spd

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I have just changed struts and shocks, springs on my 2001 maxima. No where on the car did I see bumpstops. My question obviously is; am I missing something or looking in the wrong place?

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time_tracker
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bruno607 wrote:I have just changed struts and shocks, springs on my 2001 maxima. No where on the car did I see bumpstops. My question obviously is; am I missing something or looking in the wrong place?
They are there unless you not sure what they look like. Check out manual.

adamcox27
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Car: 2002 Nissan Maxima
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The bumper/stop is integrated into the boot/bellow (at top). The top of the shock body will be stopped by the bottom of the stop as it travels inside and through the bellow.

I would recommend inspection of bellows at regular intervals (oil change) in order to catch and replace defective ones. It will save expensive, premature replacement of shock. Bellow keeps fine dust from adhering to the shock piston rod, which acts like fine sand paper as it passes and wears the inside rubber rings. I know. Shocking!

~ Adam

azmotoxxx
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Joined: Sun Sep 13, 2009 5:27 pm
Car: 2002 Infiniti I35

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I have an 02 Infiniti I35. I installed the Eibach Pro lowering springs front and rear with Tokico struts. Also, I installed a stillen rear sway bar. The car rides like s*** and bottoms out so easily. Is there anything that can be down to prevent the bottoming out? You would think with stiffer springs, nice struts, and a sway bar it would ride better than stock. No the car is ghetto. Any ideas? Could the struts and springs be installed wrong? I personally didn't install them. Any ideas?

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jltibbs
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1994 Infiniti Q45
2000 Infiniti I30
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Welcome to NICO!

I feel as though you may have gotten wrong info, or had different expectations. You have lowered your center of gravity, changed your spring rate, and put on performance struts. The original equipment is made to give you that comfort that you are used to. The fact that you have changed all of that out is why you no longer have that comfort. The parts that you put on are made to make the car handle more aggressively. No sense of comfort was even worried about when those parts were manufactured.

Now, to clarify, did you buy Tokico HP (blues) or the Illuminas (white)? If you bought the blues and hate the ride, sell them and get stock or go with the Illuminas. On the other hand, if you have Illuminas and they are very stiff, look at the adjustment setting on the top of the struts and bring them down to 1, as that is the smoothest ride possible. See if that makes a difference for you.

krsdal
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Joined: Thu Mar 30, 2006 3:06 pm
Car: 2000 Maxima GLE

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Rear strut top hat adjustment 2000 GLE

I am installing the rear strut on my Maxima Not sure where the top hat should rest on the top of the spring? Is there a reference point for the top hat on the rear strut??

Thanks
Modified by krsdal at 10:02 AM 9/30/2009

loced1
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Sep 15, 2010 7:20 pm
Car: 2000 Infiniti I30

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I am going to be putting 20" wheels on my 2000 i30 soon. I do need to replace my struts, so I figured I would do this at the same time. I looked at the spring/strut setup used here. The only springs I found were lowering springs. Being that I am upgrading my wheels, just wanted to know if these springs will still work? I will be doing more research on the size of the wheels and tires in the meantime.

Thanks

~G~


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