There are few good guides on the org on how to replace the lower rad but there aren't a ton of pics.. So I snapped a bunch during the process when I did mine this past weekend.

The total time start to finish was 9 hours but my font end was a little mangled.. I had to pull out one lower corner, slide hammer and sledge the passenger unibody rail, unkink the drivers side upper rad and unibody rail, and a few other things to get the new part to fit.

Ignore the miss alignments. They're more of an upper rad, fog bucket and bumper support.

Other new parts: bumper support, support brackets, hood struts, and cross member bolts.

 

 

That looks like a fun job.
Nice I30 BTW

 

Did you throw in spot welds or just leave it with bolts?

This is a job I might tackle next year so thanks for the pictures.

 

I welded it in either from the back through the holes drilled in the unibody during dismantling or I drilled new holes through the new support to weld it to the unibody.

I wouldn't suggest just bolting it in.

I lined everything up, bolted it in with the tow hooks, spot welded, then took the hooks off to do the last few spot welds on the bottom from the rear.

There are 6 spot welds per side that are in the unibody rail and a pita to drill out. I used a die grinder with a long shanked carbide burr to burn through those.
This pic shows the 6 inside:

 

Nice pictures, very informative. Thanks.

 

Front rad support is something everyone has to replace on there maxima/i30 lol..

 

Not everyone. My 97 with 250k miles has hardly any rust anywhere on the car. It really just depends on where you live and if the car was well taken car of.

 

97 with 126k, no rust on mine.

 

i did this job on 2 cars this month, fairly simple with the right tools

 

Yeah at least 2 maybe 3 hours of my 9 were because the front end was mangled.

I've done bodywork and welded before but I've never drilled out sections of unibody and replaced. Overall, it wasn't that bad. I should have done the upper too but I would have had a lot more pulling etc. to make that fit. Good thing it's only connected to the new lower via 10 spot welds.

 

Just had mine done today but a shop in Denver, CO.

It's cost me 250 and took about 1h 30mins for the to do the whole job. So happy it's finally done. It was hard to find a shop that knew what was going in on the west coast since the car was from New England.

 

this should be a sticky LOL nice job brooo

 

All depends on where you live, and not necessarily how well you took care of the car. I took very well care of my car, but because of Winters in CT and VA, well, it's rotting out. I'll be doing this on my 5th gen Next week.

 

Thanks for the info. I had no idea that some welding was needed, now I have to take it to a shop to get mine done.

 

95naSTA,

I have a 96 I30 and am looking at replacing the lower tie bar. I have the following question - did you buy part # 625302L800 (I30) or 6253040U00 (Maxima) part number. I am asking because I can find the Maxima part # for about $125 and the I30 part for $185 online and was wondering if they are interchangeable.

 

It looks like 6253040U00, you can see the end of the number on the sticker in the 8th picture from the top.

 

Damn 97, good eye.

Yep, confrim I used the 6253040U00 part without issue.

 

Nice, this is what I wanted to see. Doesn't seem quite as bad as I pictured it...just hope I can get the front bumper cover off, those bolts get kinda rusty

 

Im right in the middle of this project and can tell you this is a complete Fn pain. Bolts are snapping left and right... I took the grill out and tried the middle bolt for the bumper cover and snap! Should I just snap them all off and duct tape it all back together or what?

 

I hear ya, I tried to replace the bumper cover on my old car and just gave up because two of them snapped and the rest didn't look promising.

Zip ties > duct tape

 

just got my lower core support - part#62530-A32B001 from courtesyparts.com, $166 shipped. Mine is HANGING. Thought it was the motor mounts, ordered them yesterday. Oh well, this should be fun.

 

My rad support was hanging so low before the repair that it actually increased axle vibes. Any vibration I had form lowering went away after I replaced it. Time to go lower.. lol.

 

In the above photo, what is the function of that hose which goes in front of the A/C condenser/radiator-like thing and loops through the metal tube returning back where it came from?

Is that a very simple tranny cooler?

 

power steering cooler. Later maximas, i.e. 2000 do not have the metal pipe, just rubber hose that does a u turn from 1 pipe to the other.

 

This.

There was a day i looked at the replacing the bumper and saw how rusted those bolts were...i sd uh-uh i aint doing that job.

Then my car was in an accident and the entire radiator support had to be replaced. That was a yr ago.

The mech who fixed my car for the accident, spot welded like 10 places on the new lower radiator support.

Last month I was doing an oil change and noticed that the lower support was sagging at the location where the cross memeber for the motor mounts bolts up to the rad support.

I had the entire lower radiator support welded up from pass to driver side. One long solid weld.

Be warned and keep an eye on it for any sagging.

 

Did you buy aftermarket? I heard nightmares about those not lasting long at all and with all the work being done the safest way would be to go to the dealer. I'm currently waiting on mine from Nissan and it was $480 for the whole thing, I hit a deer, and now I have the comfort of knowing it'll not only last if coated properly but it will fit right and it won't sag.

 

My mech bought it.

I let him buy it cuz every time i bring him a part for my car, he tells me the part is puny lol. He then makes a phone call, gets the part, shows me the part, and sure enough the part he got is way more robust and stronger then the part i found originally.

For this reason I let him buy the rad support.

I was gonna do ebay, but too many ppl here sd the ebay ones were junk and the OEM part was out of my budget at the time.

 

awesome. ive been driving mine like this for some time. now i have the support and i have to do the job myself or wait till i have more money.

 

lol bookmarked! My radiator support is spot out rusted and I'm thinking of replacing the top frame as well as I was an accident

 

^^^thats what i gotta do, i hit a deer.

 

I feel tired looking at the pics...

But it must be a great feeling knowing it's been done right, and you DIY'd.

I know a while back I figure I'll just take it to the body shop....and they wanted $1400 for aftermarket. I thought, hmm.....if I say I want OEM, they charge me for it, it could be 2 years before I realize I got ripped-off and they still used aftermarket!

 

From experience, you will learn in a matter of months, not years. It's not the rust you have to wait for, both mine and my brother's cracked very quickly after the change-out using aftermarket supports.

 

That's why you get the part yourself and tell them to install it.

 

Excellent pictures.
I just discovered I have the same issue with my 1996 Maxima when I was working on this:
http://forums.maxima.org/4th-generat...help-asap.html

I removed the lower cover and found that the lower radiator support bar had broken - rusted away in the bottom center area.
The support is not totally gone on so I plan to drill holes on either side of what's left and add an 18" support bar.
I'm not looking to restore things to almost brand new, just fix it so it works. Am I fooling myself?

 

Nice writeup!!

I just crawled under our 2000 and it looks VERY rusty from what I could see. The support from the hood latch down to the lower radiator support was rusted off at the bottom. Looking through the the cracks in the plastic cover on the bottom of the car, all I saw was rust on the lower radiator support.

Looks like I'll need to do this in the not too distant future!!! A friend of mine here in Columbus said if the lower radiator support, your whole engine will drop about 3-4 inches. NOT a pleasant thought!!!

Did the parts change at all from 4th gen to 5th gen?

Thanks, Ron

 

bought my 98 Maxima Tuesday sourced parts for this wednesday picked them up thursday started yesterday.

 

Brave man. I have to do this same thing to my Infiniti, but I'm going to have a local body shop do the work for me. They quoted me $300 which includes a new cross-member and the labor to install it.

 

For $300 I bet that new crossmemebr is not OEM. Don't do it yo

 

300 is too cheap! im sure its not an oem support!!
over the time here on the .org people have posted pics of non oem supports failing miserably within short periods of time...it seems they are way to thin!!! spend the extra few bucks for oem cuz u will have to do it again if u dont!!!

order it from nissan and bring it to them...300 bucks is a cheap price just for labor! let alone parts
you will be sorry if u dont use nissan!