This is probably very isolated to me but I wanted to let the community know just in case. Last Saturday while attempting to autox I found a possible weak point in the control arm assembly. Facing the front of the front of the vehicle is a triangle shaped washer that holds the control arm bushing on the arm/tranverse link. Under stress it seems my washer snapped leaving me with big problems.


Left picture is the nut missing the washer - right is what it should look like.

The detail - I got one lap in then pulled back to grid - car seemed fine. Then upon staging I spun the tires to clean em off. The front drivers side crashed down. The control arm had shifted foward pulling out of the chassis. The arm slid right out over the remaining nut. This released the wheel which did a 45deg lean and then pulled the half-shalf out of the tranny. The fender came down right on the tire and both that and the body rear of the wheel bent. At first we saw all the trans-fluid everywhere and thought we cracked the tranny. Fortunately (very) it was just leakage from the shaft coming out.

With limited tools, and lots of friends help, we were able to reassemble everything enough to roll it away and get it on a trailer. (That in itself was a fiasco as we further damaged the bumper and more splash shields hauling it away). Got it home, dropped it in the street, and the jury-rigged assembly again fell apart taking it off the trailer. By flashlight we put it back together enough to get it parked.

Turns out these are $3 washers from Nissan. I see no reason why a proper sized & strength round steel washer wouldn't work as well. Drained the trans & refilled with new GL4 just in case. Car runs fine and I've just got the body damage to consider now. I think I'm gonna double up the washers going forward for piece of mind.

We couldn't find any parts of the washer near the breakdown location so we reasoned it broke out on course and held together til I staged again. I fear what would've happened if this had snapped at the higher speeds.

I assume the assembly is similar on the other gen Maxima's

 

Those things always scared me when I saw them. talk about cost cutting at it's worst. They only used those washers on some 4th and 5th gen Maximas. 3rd gens use a regular 18mm round washer, and some of the 5th gens use a nut with a flared bottom on it to take the place of the washer (about 6 months worth of the 2000 models only- then they went back to the washer and nut).


FYI, you can use a 5/8" washer and drill out the inside just a hair with a unibit to work for it. that's what I use when building my lower tie bars, and have yet to have one fail.


Looks like you have ES bushings on there as well.. did they not send you four large washers to use on those? If not, you need to have washers on the front and rear of that urethane bushing.

 

Hey man i saw you race in milwaukee a few weeks ago nice max i only saw you run twice though.

 

My car came with big, thick full sized washers, not the little flimsy ones you showed. But mine is a 95 (built in 94), so maybe Nissan hadn't totally cheaped out at that point.

 

Hmmm good question. I bought the Control arms used with the ES already pressed in. They didn't have em. We just installed a washer on the back because the bushing came loose. I'll call ES today and have em send me some.

 

Thanks but that was a VERY poor showing for me. Ride height, susp, align, was all screwed up. I was even changing ride height while in grid between runs.

 

My '95 has one tri-washer and one regular. A mech must have replaced it when the car belonged to my mom.

 

My ES bushings came with big washers, but I reused the OEM. I may still have them sitting around if you want them.

 

Nissan didn't design the car to go auto-xing at 7 years old. A design flaw - - - not really. The bushings and the washer got old and you were pushing it to and beyond the limits it was desinged for. The front suspension in our cars isn't the best. Actually it's pretty basic and doesn't have much stability or support. How many guys on here complain of wheel hop.

My old Honda Prelude, double wishbone all around - nice suspension right? I use to rip the bushings out of the upper control arms (car was 9 years old) when I drove it hard. Again, Honda didn't design the car to be driven like that, especially when they age a bit.

 

The stock bushings have a inner metal sleeve that would wtill be held in by the nut if the triagular washer failed. Only if the rubber bushing disintegrated would you experience what happened to you.

ES does come with big washers that should be used.

 

As much as I would love to agree with you, that part is a pretty ****ty cost cutting move. 3rd gen's have full washers, and they are pretty beefy too. I've never heard of this happening with them. Personally if my car came with washers like that I would just replace them, even if it's just stock.

Then again, a BlehmCo LTB will pretty much take away any future headache