Great write up, helped a lot. The drivers side seemed tougher for some reason, but only added couple more minutes of work. One thing I want to point out is you need to reinstall the "useless" bracket as those are your steering bump stops. Without those in place your rack will function as the stop and Im not sure that is a good idea.

 

Just wanted to chime in to send word of warning for any of you attempting this. Same car, AWD 07

I was just replacing struts/shocks, but ran into a HUGE issue. Everything was coming apart like butter, I was getting excited, "wow, this is the easiest car I've ever worked on" there is no visible rust anywhere. I thought I would be done with the passenger side front in less than an hr.

Then I get to the 17mm bolt holding the strut fork to the control arm. Nut comes off no big deal, the bolt however, is STUCK. I hammer and pry it out as much as possible, then start "unthreading it" from the bushing that its in. Get it about halfway out, and the bolt snaps, stuck inside the bushing. So I try to undo the lower ball joint to start removing the control arm, and it just spins. Everyone knows when that happens, and you already have a torn boot, the ball joint is most likely toast.

I can't grab and keep the ball joint from spinning because that will destroy the ball joint even further. I have no idea how they are even removed from the control arm because because they are pressed in, but the backside is completely inaccessible. The bushing that connected to the fork is utterly trashed from me putting so much twisting motion on the bolt trying to remove it, before it snapped.

So the bushing needs to be replaced now, but I can't do that without removing the control arm. Once, the control arm is removed, the ball joint will need to be replaced but it looks completely unservicable.

Does anyone have any ideas? I'm probably going to end up ordering new control arms for both sides (haven't even made it to the other side but can see it happening again) to the tune of $500+ and probably a week of the car being immobile, in my garage.

Long story short, have lots of extra money, time, and an extra vehicle on hand.

 

Thank you for posting this "how to"!

It is literally the ONLY visual aid on the entire internet for how to deal with that forked strut mount support, and it's even worse for those of us with a 2008 G35xS because there is virtually no other how-to references anywhere on the Web!

 

Thank you so much for this documentation, you saved me a ton of time when I put new "loaded" struts on.

CAD plus 3D printers are really nice to have. My dear wife has a 2008 Infiniti G35x with over 216,000 miles on it. It's been truly reliable, but I convininced her about 6 months ago it was just time to retire it to "second car status". Actually, I just wanted her to trade it in but she loves that car so it's gonna be around for awhile. Now that she's in her new ride, I can do a few service items on the G35x and each of those can take me days to get done. This weekend it was new front struts, first replacements done at 216k at almost 11 years old, I can live with that. New struts on hand, internet documentation, service manual, I attack the problem. All goes well, but there’s an “undocumented” sound/vibration seal between the upper strut and the fender mount that broke when I removed the old strut, not really reusable and it’s Sunday afternoon. OEM replacements can be ordered online for just $30+ each!!!! OUTRAGIOUS. Measure old gasket parts, fire up CAD, fire up Prusa 3D printer, load TPU filament (flexible, oil and solvent resistant)…new seal printed. Time in design: about 30 minutes, Material cost (filament): $0.08 each, Print time: 30 minutes per seal. Drive’s side strut installed… passenger’s side will be done tommorw morrning.

I have only one other item to add; my new strut was a little longer where it inserterd into the fork. The problem was there was a rust ridge in there and I failed to test fit the new strut to the fork before installing. I removed the strut and fork, hit the fork rust with emery cloth, test fitted and then re-installed again. Worked perfect. It was a good day!


Old (red) seal on left, 3D printed (white) seal on right.

 

If you'd like that 3D printed "55338-EG00A Strut Mount Seal" it's now available on Thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3830414). I strongly suggest that you print it in TPU, the stuff is perfect for this type of application.