Hope I can explain this clearly. I had KYB's installed on my Maxima about 25K miles ago by a shop in another town. Hate those KYB's, so I am now replacing them myself with stock Nissan struts ordered from DaveB off my VIN number. All the schematics I've seen show a single bolt that attachs the "top hat" to the strut rod. The new Nissan struts even came with a single bolt in the factory box. When I removed the front KYB's I noticed that there were 3-4 large washers underneath the old bolt holding the top hat (or mount insulator/bracket/bearing etc.,) to the beveled edge at the top of the strut rod. You can see the beveled edge about 1/2 inches below the threads at the top of the strut rod in the picture below, as well as the 3-4 "extra" washers on the floor behind the strut.



When I put the top hat back on both the KYB's, as well as the new Nissan struts, I can see why the shop put in the washers. The strut rod threaded end sticks up so far into the top hat that a single bolt will not seat it to the strut rod. If you look closely at this blurry picture below you can see that the top hat drops down past the threads by about a 1/4". So even with the bolt tightened down, top hat wobbles loosely on the end of the strut rod. All that hold the top hat up then is the pressure of the springs. That doesn't seem right to me.



Is this normal? Or is a part missing? Working up from the bottom...all that I have above the strut is a bumper, rubber seat for the top of the spring, upper seat, strut mount bearing, 3-bolt strut mount bracket, mount insulator cover, and a thin orange spacer gasket.

When I installed the rear struts over the weekend, they fit snuggly against the strut rod with a single bolt, and no washers.

 

Is the bump stop on?

 

I don't think this 2001 Maxima has a bumber stop on the front. It had bumper stops on the rear struts, but not on the front. The front bumper is form-fitted into the underside of the upper seat.

 

Bump stops are on the boots in a 5th gen. Did you install hte boots?

 

Well, I may not know what a bump stop is then. On the rear struts they were metal plates that fit on top of the bumper...that may have been a bumper "cover" and not a stop??? There was nothing like that on the front struts. Here is a photo of all the parts that came off, laid out in the order I took them off. The old bumps are on top and I cut one open to show that what I think is a bump stop was inside of the bumper. The new bumper DaveB sent me is on the bottom of the photo.



Both the old and new bumpers fit snuggly into the underside of the upper spring seat. Here is the new one installed.

 

The "neck" of the dust boot in the bottom of the first picture, and in the second picture is your bump stop.

 

This problem was due to the KYB mounts. They do not have the 1/2 inch spacer on the bottom side of the mount insulator like Nissan oem have. That is why my old installer used 3-4 washers under the top bolt to compensate for the lousey KYB mount. Replaced KYB with Nissan parts and the problem was solved!

See photo in this link.

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?p=5575741