Is it just me or do the bolts on our Z's seem really soft? I have stripped more nuts and bolts in the past two weeks on my Z than I have on any other car. I'm not sure who Nissan contracted to do their metallurgy, but I have not been impressed. I'm quite tempted to go by the Honda dealer and pick up some nuts and bolts of necessary sizes to replace the ones on my car.

 

Are you following the factory Torque specs for each bolt?

 

Yeah, but many many of my problems have come from trying to get a bolt off. Also, one of my endlink bolts managed to cross-thread itself, so it won't tighten all the way, nor will it come off.

 

We manufacture a lot of products over in the far east and we have TONS of problems like this. Many of the nuts and bolts they use are 'pot metal'. Of course I would have never expected to see this quality on a Nissan... actually, let me rephrase that, I would have never expected to HEAR about this type of problem on a Nissan (as I personally have not seen it).

 

'pot metal'?!? I certainly hope that this is not the case, especially on suspension components. I would have expect at least grade 5 bolts on parts like these...

Hedonist - Is it that the bolt won't back out at all or is it that is only backs out part of the way?

 

It won't back out, but is still intact. We're going to take an impact wrench to it tomorrow and hopefully that will yield some results.

One thing I've learned over the past few weeks is that you should ALWAYS use a 6 point socket end when working on the Z...