Hi guys,
newbie here, I have a maxima 2002 stock, I took my car to dearler for an oil change and the guy came to me and told me the car needs 2400$ worth of suspension repairs and the quote might change once the work actually starts. long story short, he said I need new ball joints, wheel bearing, LCA bushing, so after researching and reading other members replacing their pass side front LCA I built up enough confidence to do mine and hope to save some money I don't have, so I decided rather then mess with ball joint and bushing I ordered a new LCA and wheel bearing and did the replacement. While installing the LCA one of the bolt went halfway with simply screwing by hand and then stopped, I had to use torque wrench to get it to tighten all the way and I had to exert a lot of pressure to get it to move but it tighten finally to Nissan specs. Ball joint went in fine , wheel bearing went in fine (had to watch many videos to get it in the right way)
after all is assembled took the car for a test, the streeing wheel vibration went away , braking does not cause shaking anymore, all is good so I thought until three days ago (two weeks after the replacement). When I hit a bump or a pothol I hear a knocking noise from the right side, the noise got louder after two days of normal driving. I need help figuring out
1- if I installed something wrong
2- how to pinpoint the area of the noise.
here is what I tried, if I stand facing the right front of the car and press the car down no noise, if I do the same facing left front no noise, if I stand facing the rear of the car driver side and press down and bounce the car is when I hear the noise coming from the front. so I asked a friend to do the same while I am under the car looking at the new LCA moving, I cannot figure out where the noise is coming, the only thing I am sure of is that noise is coming from the front right side.
is there a step by step to pinpoint what is causing the knocking noise ?
thank you all in advance.
newbie

 

I had a knocking noise I thought was suspension but it actually ended up being the pass. Side motor mount, they tend to go bad and u can't really tell until u take it off, try putting the car in drive with the brakes held to load the motor and see if it moves/makes the knocking noise

 

My first guess would be the swaybar endlinks. They're really a terrible design...mine come loose all the time, even using loctite on the threads. If they're tight, just get down there with your torque wrench and make sure everything is still torqued to spec.

The bolt you had trouble with - was it one of the two bolts that attach the rear bushing to the suspension subframe? If so, those are very very prone to strip out so it could be what happened....unfortunately it's a total pain to fix because of the size of the bolt and the wall thickness you have to work with to re-tap...I do have a fix so shoot me a PM if you find that it's stripped. (I don't wanna hijack the thread)

 

I removed the wheel tonight and inspected the two bolts you mentioned (that hold the rear bushing to subframe) and they are tight as they can be. I also inspected the sway bar link and no visible loosness , everything seems to be in place . how can you tell if these two bolts are stripped ?

 

well if one is stripped, they can easily get tight as you deform the metal in the threads screwing it in....when mine was stripped, I could see that the aluminum LCA bushing bracket was not flush with the black steel suspension subframe....that would be a good place to start. Other than that, you'd have to back off the bolt but I'd almost advise against that because if it is stripped, you'll have to fix it...