yeah i also had my rod replaced and it stopped drifting after firestone aligned it. I only noticed my caster was off after I put in bigger wheels because only the passenger side started rubbing due to the bad caster alignment. And the caster isn't adjustable so I don't know what's going on. I was thinking of taking my whole passenger suspension apart and putting it back together. I'm not sure if it was after the warranty change...

jason or q45tech can you shed some light on my situation? thanks.

 

I need some help. So I decided to install my compression rod today that I got from Jason.

If you look at the attached pic. On the left is the old rod with the old ball joint and on the right is the new one.

How do I take off that tapered sleeve off of the old one and put it on the new one (you see that spacer looking thing)? Do I need to take it off and put it on the new one? I'm having a hell of a time taking it off, I've tried pretty much everything I can think of. Please help.

 

I don't have an answer for you, but probably just more questions. Does that conical spacer seem to serve any purpose? Does it keep the bushing from moving down towards the threads? My first guess would be that it's not required with the new part.

Thanks for the old vs. new pic. That alone is great! Can you take some more, especially where there appears to be a difference in the bushing design (which is probably the cause of the awful creaking!)?

 

Here is a lousy pic of the bushing. Old one is on the right. My 30 second examination, I couldn't see a difference in the design. Perhaps different materials? But there was a nice crack in the bushing on the old one.

I've put the old rods back on and yes the squeeking got worse. I emailed Jason at Riverside and he is going to get me the part number of that "bolt stopper" on Monday. Seems to me like it is a necessary part. Hopefully I can get that part. I think I can change the rods in an hour now that I know what to do.

 

Yes, those pics do look the same (even though your camera outmanuevered you and autofocused the background

Makes you wonder if the bushing material has changed, or if Infiniti just renumbered the parts for the heck of it.

 

they already came out with 2 solutions for this while I was working at the dealership. 1st solution was to just replace the compression rod. The 2nd solution... They got rid of it all together. No more compression rods on 07 G's. or G37 probably. It uses the same suspension design as the M.

 

I'm having the same exact problem as you right now. My revised rods did not come with the tapered cone shaped black piece. And I could not remove the old one either. I contacted Jason about this as well so hopefully he comes through with a solution.

Besides this I could tell a big difference between the bushing on my old rod and the new rod. There is a lot of empty area in the old bushing. The new rod has much more bushing material and there are no gaps. I'll take a picture of the two the next time I'm ready to install.

 

You can stop by the Nissan dealer and buy part #40173-33P00.

$10 each. I scatched up my old ones pretty bad trying to use a screwdriver. I didn't want to mess with a pitman arm puller to get the old one off. Not only did it get rid of the squeak, but it doesn't seem to drift to the right anymore. I need to get another alignment just to make sure.

 

Thanks for the part #. I'll go ahead and stop by my dealer to get that. Glad the new parts are working out for you. Hopefully it stays that way.

 

The compression rods are directly related to the caster. Caster can have an affect on drifting.

 

Dealer covered mine under warranty even though I was at 64k miles and out of warranty by time, too...

Get your dealer to do the same (they might have to check with corporate, but they did it for me)

 

I replaced my compression rods this past weekend and the squeaking/creaking is completely gone. It used to happen going up my driveway at home and up my driveway at work. Also the steering and car feels a bit more solid now that there isn't room for slop and freeplay in the rod bushings.

 

For those that replaced the rod, did you have clunking with the old arm or just squeaking? I have a metal clunking that I can feel in the floorbaords. It was thought to be from the endlinks, but today the tech said that it appears to be from the compression rods. I thought when they failed they only caused squeaking.

 

The sound made by the failing compression rod bushings has been described in many different ways. I would use the words: clanking, clunking, chattering, thunking, etc. It depends on how bad your bushings are, and things like temperature - colder temp make mine rattle much worse.

 

Mine must be quite bad. The noise is LOUD and can be felt. I now have 70,467 miles on her.