Damage okay or bad?

[davejones]

Evening!

I owe a trip report, which I will get to in due course. On the weekend returned from a 2 week jhb-zinkwazi-pomene-maphinhane-mapai-pafuri-jhb trip.

I put the Patrol through its paces travelling from Mapai to Pafuri. In hindsight, I should have just camped in the bush, but I got fixated on making the border by their 4pm closing time and so travelled at an average speed of around 50-55km/h as opposed to a more respectable 35km/h. If anyone has driven that road you'll be aware of the many dips and axle-twister type holes that connect the short sections of "flat" limpopo river bed. The result was a fair amount of late breaking and entering into, and fairly speedy exiting of the holes, and one incident where I "rode" up a nasty axle twister that definitely bounced the Patrol (you know the kind when you swear at yourself for treating your beloved 4x4 a little harshly). That being said, I had numerous boxes in the back that were not strapped down and never had an incident where they were thrown around.

Needless to say, the Patrol is an amazingly tough 4x4... another 3200km on the clock and hopefully many more to come.

What I did want to ask was the following.

When I got home, I wanted to do an inspection on the front suspension (nothing was seemingly wrong, just felt I owed a little TLC to my Trol), so jacked up the front, and notice this:

IMG00133.jpg (550.15 KiB) Viewed 1236 times

This is the left hand side. I dont even know what you call this "part"? I would imagine it is to stop the car from bottoming out when heavily laden and/or when entering obstacles to fast, saving the rest of the suspension components?

The next one the "bulb" that appears torn in the previous picture, is completely torn off.

IMG00137.jpg (521.9 KiB) Viewed 1236 times

Now i have no idea whether these were already like this before I went on the trip or not, but i also think that if they become hard and brittle, under some hard driving there can be impact and some damage.

Havent asked nissan for a quote to replace, not sure how vital these parts are, hence my posting this topic.

Thanks for your help guys!

Dave

PS... when driving in the bush, drive africa time

[davejones]

PPS - I feel that I am now qualified to endorse OME Seriously, save up and pay the bucks for good quality shocks and springs

[Russ Kellermann]

Dave, those are Bump-Stops , They limit the upward travel of the wheel just as much as they limit the bottom out of metal on metal.By limiting the upward travel they in-turn force the opposite wheel to increase its downward travel thus maintaining a good ground clearance in the belly (or brake-over) area, and limitation of wheel scrub in the wheel arch of the upward travelling wheel. With suspension lifts what we are meant to do is actually extend the bump stop, however, this is usually only done with lifts of significant hight, not 50mm OME kits. Your bump stops must have taken a fair pounding on that trip but they could have shown signs of fatigue before you even bought the vehicle. You can order new ones from OME agents or originals from nissan.

[JG Shields]

The Bump Stops fulfill an important role. I had the same problem with worn Bump Stops before I installed OME and a pothole caused a brake pipe to be squeezed closed. Replace them @ a cost of approximately R550 for the set of two.

[Gerrit Loubser]

JG, whas that the price from Nissan or an aftermarket bump stop? One of mine is also pretty stuffed, but if I recall correctly the price that I got from Nissan was R400 for one.

[JG Shields]

Gerrit, I paid around R515 for the set of two original Nissan parts at Nissan. I never searched for aftermarket parts. Sorry.