Nissan Factory Steel wheels - Advice needed

[XenoBlitz]

A little off-topic, but close enough I guess..

I noticed you have TJM Gold Suspension.....

I found my TJM gold to be a VERY hard ride.... have you experienced the same issue at all?

[Peter Connan]

Gerrit Loubser wrote:
I agree that it is highly likely that any fatigue failure would initiate in the rim band at the toe of the weld where the disc is attached. Once the crack has propagated through the rim band, a slow leak will develop. There should not be any sudden loss of pressure, because the crack will be quite small at this point. The loss of pressure would alert the driver to the fact that all is not well with the rim before disaster is imminent.

Gerrit I guess I had a sudden failure shortly after I bought my car because the previous owner had put tubes in instead of fixing the problem. This had the effect that the crack propagated virtually half-way around the circumference. The tube then extruded through the crack and got pinched off on a long section. Fortunately it was on a back wheel.

Regards
Peter

[Russ Kellermann]

A little off-topic, but close enough I guess..

I noticed you have TJM Gold Suspension.....

I found my TJM gold to be a VERY hard ride.... have you experienced the same issue at all?

Hi,

this is tricky to answer, partly because i have a rear leaf sprung vehicle in comparison to your coil sprung rear.

TJM have been known to be harder than other suspensions, however, i didn;t notice any extra rigidity other than one would expect from a aftermarket set up. One must remember that i have the 4.2D up front which will be alot heavier than,say, the 4.5 petrol, and to be honest, i still think i could have gone harder up front.

At the rear i run factory patrol leafsprings with TJM shocks and so far no worries, yet once again, i often have to load the bak full and i often wish the shocks were even more controlling , so its tough to reach a compromise between road with light and heavy loads, and off road with light and heavy load, but i guys we all experience this compromise in some way regardless of the format of your suspension (ie:coils or leafs, LWB or SWB) etc.

[Gerrit Loubser]

Gerrit I guess I had a sudden failure shortly after I bought my car because the previous owner had put tubes in instead of fixing the problem. This had the effect that the crack propagated virtually half-way around the circumference. The tube then extruded through the crack and got pinched off on a long section. Fortunately it was on a back wheel.

I think you are hitting the nail on the head there. Some of the tyre stores also take the tyres off the rims and then spray paint the cracked rims in order to stop the loss of pressure. This is dangerous and stupid, because the rims were trying to tell them that all was not well...

[Russ Kellermann]

Interesting stuff.

I'm putting in a claim for 1x Nissan steel rim and 1x BFG 285 - not taking any chances and wanna keep things uniform in the wheels and tyre dept.

Thanks for all the input.

[Peter Connan]

Pleasure Boet.

I also learned considerably from this.

[davejones]

My last wheel alignment indicated that my left front wheels is a few millimeters behind the right, i had always felt a pull to the left, only certain amount of adjustment can be done before causing proper uneven tyre wear. Steering wheel still skew, pulls less to the left and persistent steering vibration at around 80km/h.. Guess it happens with overlanding use where harsh bumps and holes are an inevitable occurence, certainly more so than driving into a stair case!!

Glad that everything is okay.... i had that vomit-in-mouth experience when wanting to sort out my steering shimmy i was quote almost R30k to replace pretty much every steering component!

[Russ Kellermann]

Hahaha, i know, was a little embarrassed to say the least, but i had to be honest (would have been easy to say i did it doing the baboons pass!).

Thanks for not laughing - though i'm sure there were a few!

Dave - That shake at 80km per hour is the usual death wobble, and i don;t believe it has anything to do with the amount of overlanding done or staircases hit. I believe it is simply a design trademark of the patrol (particularly the GU/Y61 and moreso with the diesel models). It happened to both my patrols and countless other patrols out there. however, when i put in my TJM coils and shocks it went away. ....BUT - i did not ever install an aftermarket steering damper, i am still using the original nissan one which is so fok'd its not even funny (oil completely gone and prob no damping at all),...yet i have no problems on/of road,.... just something to think about, i'm not sure what that means, but its something to ponder....

Dave, i did not want to just pull my steering wheel off the splines and reposition, i wanted to know why it was skew and i wanted to know if all was in order.,...then only, did i consider pulling the sw off and reposition. If your wheel alignment is in good order and your tyres are wearing well, etc etc, then there should be no reason why you can't just straighten the steering wheel yourself .

But only as long as all is within factory threshold/spec.

[davejones]

I've thought as much, do think it got a little worse after putting the 33's on. Even replaced the drag-link (although this was needed due to plenty of play on the bushes). Do have the OME steering damper, think all the original suspension kit still with theo orignial owner.

Ive thought of taking off the sw myself, the guys at the TWT wont because of the airbag. Your thoughts?

[Russ Kellermann]

I see, ...

Isn;t there a switch somewhere to turn off the airbag (ie: for when mechanics/work is necessary ) .

My advice - take it to nissan and tell them to strighten the steering wheel, that way if something happens to the bags its on their account.