Hey yall. I tried putting on a racingline bar today but ran into an issue.

One of the bolt holes is misaligned (circled in blue) and I can't get the third tower bolt in from the top.

My question, whats the best way to fix this? A buddy suggested I have to lower the strut tower and re-align the top boot?

Can I drive without that bolt?

Please help! Super awesome pic below

 

Honestly I would not drive with it with the bolt missing. Better safe that sorry and you don't want to take that chance in damaging something.

 

Agreed

 

Loosen everything up and realign. Should fit from the looks of it. And when I say everything, I mean EVERY bolt on the tower and bar.

 

Like the good man says, loosen everything up and it will fit, then tighten back up

 

The same thing happened to me when I installed my STB on Thursday. Jack up the car on that corner so the wheel is off the ground. Find a socket that fits the nut at the top of the strut (I forget what size it is) and put it on a big socket wrench. You can use the wrench to twist the strut whichever way you need to go to get the holes realigned. You will have to remove the other two bolts first though.

 

Keep us posted on what happens OP

 

I had the same situation with my racingline strut bar. Dont tighten any bolts until you hand tread them all. Start with the problem one. If the rest doesn't align after the problem one u gotta lift it and realign.

Follow vqr then gear head directions

 

you need to jack the wheel up and realign

 

Same thing happened to me when I installed mine actually, and I started to panic before realizing how to fix it.

Jack up the side of the car that the hole is misaligned on; try pushing on different sections of that wheel and you'll notice the strut tower holes move around. I actually was able to just push on the wheel with my foot while the car was jacked up and the holes moved around and aligned themselves.

Also make sure when you're putting the bolts in you're threaded right and don't strip them, if you encounter a lot of resistance while tightening you may have it threaded incorrectly.

 

Hey guys. Thanks for responding so quickly, much appreciated. I figured everything out but now with a new twist

Some of you were right, I had to take down the entire strut tower and then re-align it back in and bolt from the top. Pain in the a$$ but it worked, I was able to re-bolt everything fine.

I then f'ed it up reaaaal good by cross threading one of the bolts in the strut tower, after it was aligned . I ended up crushing the metal into the bolt's, which is ummm....bad.

So thus I have to retake the entire strut assembly back off, decompress the spring, and replace the top boot with the female bolt threads. And thats a job I'm leaving to the dealer. FML

Long story short for those reading this, be very careful messing with your strut towers and do your research ahead of time. I didn't and I'll pay for it. Oh well, at least I learned something.

 

yea i had problems with it also. i brought it to a shop and it took them 2 hours even tho it said on the instructions it takes 1 hr. They thought it was an easy job but eventually they got frustrated because it wouldnt get aligned.

 

For some reason mine is occasionally slapping off of the intake manifold, it seems like the bar should have had a little more of a bend to it for clearance. I guess I'll try to find washers to put under the 2 innermost holes in the bracket to lift it up a little bit.

 

is this problem only with racingline's strut bar?

i haven't heard of the stillen strut bar causing trouble.

 

What type of shop did you take it to?

When I had my strut bar installed on my Maxima it was pretty close to the intake manifold but never slapped off of it. Do you have any pictures of how close it is?

 

I have the Racingline strut bar and didn't have any fitment issues. Other than having to cut the plastic cover pieces that go back on top of it that is.

Maybe GEAR HEAD's strut bar was bent or damaged during delivery?

 

Just want to let everyone know that the dealer took care of me and fixed the stripped bolt hole. Only cost about 100 to get it fixed

I also had fitment issues with the bracket from racingline. Actually I think that's why I cross-threaded the bolt int he first place, b/c the bracket's holes were not lined up properly. Glad to hear I'm not the only one with this issue, someone should tell racingline.

Anyways I'm going to grind the holes a little bigger on the bracket so it fits, hope that works.

 

What exactly is the issue you're having? The holes on the bracket don't match up with the holes for the strut tower? If that's true I probably wouldn't have even tried to install it, anytime screw holes aren't perfect you're most likely going to strip it.

I had some difficulty getting mine on, got two of the bolts in no problem but the third was a PAIN. Had to loosen the other two, push around on the wheel with the car jacked up to get the 3rd hole centered right, and then get the 3rd one started and finally tighten all 3. Keep in mind how much resistance you felt taking the bolts off and that's roughly how much you need to put them back on, any more and I'd stop because it's being stripped.

Sorry to hear about your experience though.

 

Hey no worries. You hit the nail on the head, the holes on the bracket didn't line up. They were off just enough for me to be stupid and cross thread the bolt. It's all good I'm making the bracket holes a little bigger to fit this time.

 

STB?

Guys,

I have much more experience messing with the later Mustangs than Maximas, but notice that my new 2011 Maxima has a strut brace built into the frame (running back behind the intake assembly).

Is there really much to be gained by placing an overhead brace on the car in addition to the member that is already part of the frame?

320

 

I started the install tonight...PITA. I will retry this weekend. Anyway, the bracket seems to be off slightly. Remove it, and clean install of bolts..Put it back on and one the bolts will not align. Its the same on both sides...

There seems to be plenty of movment with the braket...

 

There is lots of claims from drivers that it feels tighter than the stock one along.

 

Well i finally received my FSB, RSB, and Endlinks this week and put them on yesterday.

I ran into 2 issues with the FSB. The passenger side bracket did not match up AT ALL. Even eyeballing it over the strut the middle hole was off by a good 1/3". I ended up drilling the hole out to fit and even then had to do some cranking on the bracket where the strut bar attached to get it to line up correctly with the driver side bracket instead of pointing at the driver seat. On the driver side when hand tightening the middle bolt it broke off in my strut tower... Looking at how it broke off it looked like a defect in the bolt. Hopefully just that one and not in the whole batch that i received. So right now i'm riding on 2 bolts until i can get to the shop to drill it out.

As far as handling characteristics i'm pleased with the products.

If anyone else does this i'd plan more time than expected to install the FSB. What i thought was going to be the easiest part took longer than everything else i did combined.

 

Quick tip for anyone installing their own strut bar - I'd be extremely careful modifying unless you know what you are doing! My strut bar brackets didn't fit at first either until I jacked the car up, moved the wheel around and got them all to line up. I doubt the strut bar would have helped the car if I drilled holes in the bracket to make it fit on my first line up. Now, while it's possible that some people here have received strut bars that need modification - I'd still be EXTREMELY hesitant to do that unless you are 150% positive your bracket does not fit and you have already tried jacking up the car, loosening the bolts, and moving the wheel around to adjust the strut tower bolt holes. I'd just hate for someone to slap theirs on there and see it not fit like mine, and modify it when you really could have just jacked the car up. No disrespect to those who needed to modify theirs to get it to work, just warning others newer to this.

 

Honestly if at all possible i wouldn't move the strut tower AT ALL unless you're already taking it apart like i was to mess with my springs. And yes unless you're COMPLETELY sure it doesn't fit don't modify the brackets. They can be deceptive and make you think they're not lining up when all you need is a slight adjustment. I had 2 other people attempt over a combined 6 hours attempting to get the passenger side bracket to fit before i modified it.

 

Agreed. I only tried moving it after noticing that the holes weren't aligned after taking the bolts out. Jacking up the car and pushing on the wheel with my foot made the holes move all over the place pretty easily. Just got it in position and held it with my foot, and started the bolts with my fingers. After that it was cake getting them all tightened and on there - definitely scared me though when the bolt holes started sliding off center. Took me 2 hours for install, and judging from the posts here looks like I was a lucky one because my Racingline bar fits well.

 

I just had the same thing happen, the longest bolt snapped at the mid point. I have to take it to a shop to get it drilled out and put a new one in..

For as simple as the instructions are, its a pain in the butt..

 

I second that statement. I started working on installing mine on Christmas eve. After about 30 minutes I realizd it was going to be WAY more work than the directions led on. Needless to say I had the same installation issues as those described above, including the bolt snapping. I had to leave the car parked in the garage until today when I broke down and took it to a shop to fix. FML, but it's on.

 

Insrtalled racing line bar. minor trouble aligning bolts.was suceeful in the end.

Now I have minor noise as if suspension is moving ever so slightly and it is only after the car sits over night and uppon first FWD movment.
In a ddition the sterring wheel has a click in it.I thought there was no mechanical connection from the wheel to the gear box?So this disent make senseI would feel any problems..

Delaer took a look and claimed strut may have caused issue and they cannot repeat the problem. They tightended the bolts.Still moves.

Where could a problem exist in istallation that may leave movment that only shows upon setling. I am stuck arguing that its not related to the bar with the dealer.

 

strange. my guess is maybe one of the bolts is crossthreaded and isnt in all the way? best way to test would be to remove the strut bar and see if the problem is still there.

 

I had a similar problem. Went to install the STB, the passenger side went in, under 2 minutes, no problems. The drivers side was an entirely different story. I jacked up the car, and could move the strut around at will. But I could only get bolts 1 & 3 in, as the directions call them, and couldn't get #2 to alight properly. After looking at the actual brace, the hole in the brace wasn't lined up with the hole from the factory. The bolt in the back hole was all the way pushed forward, so it couldn't move anymore. It was off by a good 1/8", just enough to not make the thread start without stipping the bolt. I tried using a factory bolt, since it has the guide nub on the end, but I ended up destroying the bolt and making it worse. Thankfully I could re-insert the racing line bolt, after taking off the bracket, and straightened out the threads. I ended up taking a dremel tool to the bracket and taking off some of the material. After this, I was able to get everything to line up, but it appears that the bracket was improperly welded together just slightly. It was still very difficult to get it started and it was snug but it went in. I plan on emailing racingline to see if they can ship another bracket so I can put in a bracket that hasn't been modified.

 

I had the same problem last night. But when I jacked the car up, there was hardly any movement of the strut holes to realign on passenger side. After 3 hours of messing with it and taking the wheel off, I got two of the 3 bolts (the two front-most bolts) back in but the third in the back attempts to go in at an angle leaning away from the hole. Tried just about everything and couldn't get that last hole to line up AT ALL. About to take it to the shop today do see if they can realign the struct tower, and maybe throw the bar on for me in the process.

Side note: I blame myself for these issues, lol, but Racingline didn't send me any instructions with the bar, just the bar and bolts. It wasn't until I downloaded instructions from google for it that I realized I was doing it incorrectly (taking bolts off instead of loosening in order like the instructions say). Now I'm riding on 2 bolts until I can get to the shop after work. FML!

 

This thread is really making me not want to order my FSB. I was looking forward to ordering it too seeming as I thought it would be a fun and easy mod to do at home hahahaha o well

 

It sucks.... don't waste ur money. Poorly designed. ..not to mention it a PITA to get ur refund

 

The installation is not that hard for the most part. If the holes are not aligned then it can be a bit of pain, but in the case of the OP, the top bolt appears to be tightened down and it is not supposed to be. The installation instructions say to only thread it 2-3 threads so that there is enough play in the bracket to get it aligned the way it needs to be.

If Nissan had made the strut towers with studs pointing up like every other car ever made then it wouldn't be an issue but, it's not like that.

 

I've installed strut bars on my other Maximas...the installation was a good amount more difficult with my 7th gen. I agree that the main reason for this was that the other Maximas had the studs pointing up. Having said that, if the opening for the three bolts to go through on each side would have been a little bigger, it would have made the install a little easier.