As many of you with older 4th gens know. Maxima's are prone to having the radiator support rusted out. On one of my recent trips to the local junyard i was told by one of the guys who usually takes apart the maximas for the yard. He has never seen a single 4th gen maxima which didn't have this part rusted out. So I began to ponder what I could do to slow this problem.
I pruchased paint and decided i would remove as much rust as i could and reseal the support.
Here are some pics i snap. I should note my car is a 1999 with a build date in 02/1999 and the car had lived in MASS all its life. There is very litte corrison and rust anywhere else.Luckily my support is still solid with surface rust which i took car of today so I am hoping not to worry about this for a while.what i do plan to do when I remove my engine support to install the ES motor mounts i will have a plate welded in for additonal support in the area where the engine cross brace bolts onto the support.
Basically I think there is a flaw in the design of the two front under engine splash gaurds, They allow water to settle and saturate the metal in that area.
The best solution I come up with would be to drill holes in this area to allow for the water to drain.


I used to this blow all dust and debri.

The paints used.

 

Before



After

 

After

 

Yes, I should really do this too. I just keep on adding things to my list for summer break...I'm going to have no break after all is said and done.

 

I am not saying this will stop all all the rust but I am hoping this will slow it and extends it life.

 

Great advice. My car is 10 years old so the rust might be worse than a newer car.

OT:
Do you use that compressor with more demanding tools? ie. impact wrench etc?

 

I was under my car for most of the afternoon installing my new traction bars. I inspected this radiator support and no sign of rust whatsoever. This is probably because I live in California so we don't have this kind of problem. I sure don't envy you guys out there.

 

Yeah but I also have a dewalt electric impact I prefer use because well its less of a hassel to pull out the compressor and get it setup.

 

Lol man not trying to be a smart *** or nothing but before you actually get under your car to begin working on it, please support your car on some proper lifts. your working on your maxima using that factory spare tire jack, lol what if that **** just gave out, and your car came slamming down on your face, lol that **** would look funny as hell hehehehe, well only if you survived den it'll be funny.

 

I did have jackstand under there. Bust thanks for being concerned for my safety

I should have taken pictures expecting to have a Smart A$@ post

Edit:
I take that back
Notice uhhh the Jackstand in the pic???

 

I have the exact same one. So far has taken all bolts off with ease.



I assume in treating the rust, you cleaned the area, light sand, then paint?

 

Yeah that's what the dupli color stuff was for. I did the best I could. It may not stop the rust but It should slow it. I also plan on welding a pice of thick gauge sheet metal between where the crossmemeber bolts to the rad support when I remove it to install the ES motor mounts this summer.

 

lol factory jack wont raise a max that high bro..

 

Very interested in doing this. Thanks for the reminder!

 

thanks for the heads up, hopefully mine aint too bad

 

Imma check out mine, thanks for the heads up I'm in MD and it gets rainy and wet on occasion.

 

Shouldn't you try sandblasting or scrapping off the loose rust first?

 

What grit of sandpaper you guys recommend? I'm not to knowledgable about sandpaper grit n stuff.

 

Karim,

I'd start with a wire brush first....then move to a 60 grit and then 100 grit...prior to painting....

 

Thanks O.

 

I did something similar with my new lower control arms... When I did my entire suspension install, the ball joints were shot on the LCAs and they were rusty anyway, so I picked some up from eBay, bought some Energy Suspension Bushings for the LCAs. I then proceeded to pull the new bushings off the LCAs, and remove the LCA pivot bar and back retaining bracket, cleaned everything up with a wirewheel on my airgrinder and then cleaned them up and sprayed them all with a "rought iron" like looking Rustoleum paint... as they were all rather rusty before I took them off the car. I had thoughts of doing the entire engine support bar, but at that point I was running short on time, and just painted the suspension bits... I've got pictures somewhere, just need to downsize and post the on the web. They turned out quite nice.

 

This is excellent information, thanks for the post.

 

did u grind down all the surface rust first.....if not I would use Rust Convertor then Krylon Rust Stop then Spray Paint but good Idea....maybe that will be this weekends project

 

i did the same thing after going thru 2 in 1 year from racing at the track. i use to rip the A frame from the radiator support. this time i had a custom support made and its shock proof now,lol. the only thing i need to do is prime it and paint it

 

I used a wire brush and rust stop paint. I didn't wanna sand it because i didn't care about the surface finish. I just wanted to make sure everything was covered with paint/rust stop.
I think the real issue here (you guys will see this when you investigate this on your own cars) is the way the splash shields are bolted to the car. they bolt directly to the radiator support and there is a nice place for water/salt to puddle and over time this results in corrison. I think overall on my car its not very bad considering its been 7 years of new england roads. Hopefully what I have done will give me a couple more years.
The two other items I plan on addressing are adding a nice thick piece of sheetmetal to where the engine bolts to the cross member for additional support. As well as drilling some holes in the shield to allow for water to drain in where is bolts to the radiator support.

Now obviously not all 4th gens will have this problem. I am sure most of the guys down south and in CA don't have to deal with this but for the $15 i spent on paint and the 1.5 hours I spent doing it I would recommend it to anyone.

 

Good thing I live in AZ where it rarely rains, but I'll check it later on for any rust.

 

Only reason I mentioned it is because once you could visually see a rust bubble, the rust is twice the size underneath. If you could knock off with a wire brush all the loose junk than thats better than just spraying over rust bubbles. It wont stop it from rusting under the surface...

I learned a lot from one of my Cousins, he used to own a Body and Paint shop. I would help out in the summers

 

dam i would hate to see you actually try to be a smarta$$, jacka$$

 

Thanks for the heads up i live in NE 2, and i never thought of doing that, nice 2 see some one is thinking out of the box.

 

I did if you lookin the pic i used a paint scraper and wire brush (both tools are on my work mat). I did the best I could. I would love to sand blast it and repaint but its not possible with everything mounted on the car. This approach is better than nothing and for those of us whose cars haven't had the rad support rusted out from under them it will prolong the life a a bit

 

Funny we go over this mine just snapped a few days ago. I dunno what to do at this point im hoping that support is bolted not welded to the chasis. I posted a thread about this 5 minutes ago.