broken front bilstein shock

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jonneil
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 9:25 pm
Location: phoenix az

broken front bilstein shock

Postby jonneil » Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:30 pm

A couple of months ago I replaced the two front shocks on my 2006 pathfinder. A week ago I noticed some thumping noise coming from my passenger side wheel whenever I would go over a bump. I took it to the dealer yesterday and they said that the shock was defective, and that it had pushed through the mount. Has this ever happened to anybody else? Here is a picture of what it looks like.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31846201@N03/7110428605/


goblue90
Posts: 322
Joined: Wed May 02, 2007 9:54 pm
Location: Philly

Postby goblue90 » Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:43 pm

Perhaps it was installed incorrectly? Here's a thread on clubfrontier regarding the incorrect vs. correct installation of Bilstein shocks:

http://www.clubfrontier.org/forums/f26/ ... ers-65258/

jonneil
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 9:25 pm
Location: phoenix az

Took strut apart and found the problem

Postby jonneil » Tue Apr 24, 2012 8:17 pm

Thanks GoBlue90 for the link. It was the same problem that many Frontier owners were experiencing too. When I replaced the stock nissan shocks, the shock washer was incorporated inside the dust cover which I overlooked. I used the smaller washer that was supplied with the bilstein shock, and it caused the strut to fail.
It took me about 2 hours to fix it, and now the ride is much improved.

goblue90
Posts: 322
Joined: Wed May 02, 2007 9:54 pm
Location: Philly

Postby goblue90 » Tue Apr 24, 2012 8:40 pm

Glad I could help and definitely happy to see that you got it sorted out!

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doctahjones
Posts: 844
Joined: Tue Nov 16, 2010 11:08 am
Location: aurora, co

Postby doctahjones » Wed Apr 25, 2012 3:11 pm

when i took my strut assemblies up to ntb to have them change out the struts (i couldn't get the spring compressors in between the springs!) i told the guy that "there was something where you had to use the old boot and couldn't use the new one", referring to the post that racerx had made, but i couldn't remember exactly what the deal was when i was up there.

the guy said that yeah the washer they put on top of the boot/strut didnt' seem right, so he took the washer out of the old boot and put it on top of the new washer and then seated it in the spring. he said he did that with some guys dodge truck that had just put the same style struts on.

khaosduke
Posts: 54
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:54 am

Postby khaosduke » Wed May 30, 2012 12:22 am

I went to install the front bilstein shocks and after the spring was seated and all and went to be mounted... a few minutes later the spring seat failed; it popped off sending the spring flying. We looked at it and thought it was too drastic a failure to be normal so I'm returning the struts as defective. Had it had been mounted and ran over a bump I can't imagine the catastrophe that would ensue.


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