Hood Movement

[ChuckH]

Last weekend I discovered that on very bumpy roads, the rear part of my hood where the hinges are moves excessively from side to side. As a result, the hood and the fender beat the crap out of one another and my paint is gone now on the fender and hood edge. I put electrical tape over the contact points for the remainder of the trip, but will be doing a more permanent fix when i figure out what to do. Anyway, here are my observations:

I looked at Schludwiller's hood and he has the same problem. Both of us have early build 2000 X's.

I looked at rrdstarr's hood and discovered that the 2001's (and maybe later 2000's, but I don't know yet) have extra bushings in the fender to reduce hood movement from side to side. They have two insdie each fender while the 2000's only have one per side. That tells me that Nissan knew about this issue and made the changes later.

The bushings in the 2001 will not fit on the 2000 because there is no rectangular cutout to attach them to in the 2000.

Anyway, I thought you other 2000 owners may want to check out your hood and take necessary precautions to keep your paint from wearing away. I will be looking for compatible bushings that can somehow be attached to the fender lining and keep the hood more secure. Otherwise I will be looking at ways to stiffen the weak hood hinges.

Just an FYI!

[OffroadX]

Pics?

Brent

[Schludwiller]

I'll try and post pictures this weekend.

I wonder if we couldn't get the dealers to fix this. All you have to do is show them a new truck to prove Nissan knows about this problem (whether we have ARB's or not).

[rrdstarr]

I'll take a pic of my '01 so you have a comparision shot!

[ChuckH]

This picture shows the area where the hood and the fender are making contact. I stopped the action before there was noticeable damage, but when the hood is open you can see that the paint is worn away down to the primer. This won't show up in a photo so I'm not even going to try!

Sorry about the poor quality!

[ChuckH]

Now my altered photo!

The blue circle represents where the bushing is on my fender. The yellow circles represent the two spots where they are on the newer trucks. Well, atleast I think that's where they are. The more forward one may be the same for both, but the older trucks don't have the more rearward one at all and that's really our topic tonight. The rearward bushing definately reduces the sideways movement at that end of the hood.

As far as having Nissan do the repairs, they might. I doubt they will do anything for me, but those of you still under warranty may be able to get something done. Then again, they may not like the conditions you have to drive in to recreate the issue! I'm probably just going to buy the bushings and then modify them so they can be glued or screwed to the fender.

[Schludwiller]

Here's a picture of the contact on my truck.

You can see there is already wear down to the metal. We should check the fenders under the ARB too. I need some 3M tape for wire areas that contact the metal. Maybe that and new bushings will take care of the issue.