96 Rear spring seat rusted out?

[Kensai]

I recently bought a 96 R50 to replace my old 92 that I've been having issues with the last few months. The PO mentioned that the trailing arm bushings needed to be replaced and while test driving it I noticed the typical rear end wobble. I tested the trailing arms by hand and not only do they need bushings, the bracket on the drivers side of the axle is slightly bent and allows for about a 1/4" of side to side play.

While working on that issue yesterday afternoon I realized that there are no bump stops installed on the rear suspension. Upon further inspection I noticed that the upper seats for both rear springs are in bad shape. The drivers side is so bad that the center is totally rusted out. I'm thinking the bump stop got hit one too many times and punched up through the top of the mount. The passengers side is also rusty and cracked, and the stop looks like it was removed before it did the same thing as the drivers side.

 

My question is this; is it possible to get new upper seats for the springs, and how much work would that entail? I've never worked on a suspension setup quite like this before, so I'm a bit lost.

 

 

A few pictures for you guys. First two are of the driver side, third is the passengers.

 

 

[Rebelord]

I believe the spring seats are welded to the frame. If they are mostly there and will hold the spring. Best bet would be to remove the springs. Use a coarse wire brush to remove as much of the loose rust as possible. Then use Ospho on the surface. Which stops the oxidation and makes it a paintable surface. I'd paint with a spray on bedliner of sorts for a good solid coating. Once dried and cured, re install rear springs. Make sure to re use the rubber isolators. If those are shot, you can get some cheap heater hose to put on the ends of the coils, usually the first 1/2-3/4 of a coil to minimize metal on metal contact.

[hawairish]

They are welded in, so not an easy replacement. Though I think Nissan does in fact have a parts number for the entire cross-members, but it's hard to tell by the diagrams which one it is (and who knows if it's still available).

 

You may want to attempt clean up as Rebelord suggested. While in there, you could have a steel disc with a nut welded on-center, and then weld that disc to the bottom of the perch. This would give you a flat surface for bumpstops, like the OE setup (in your RH pic, the bolt that's there is holding what's left from the OE bumpstop, so that should give you an idea of how it mounts).

 

My guess is there was some mud inside the perch that never got cleaned out and promoted rust whenever it got wet. There's not really any amount of impact that could have caused the problem (even without a bumpstop, the spring would have to compress more than 100% for the perches to make contact).

[Kensai]

I got a chance to look in there a little more yesterday afternoon. I think you're right with your mud and moisture getting caught up there promoting the rust. I'll try to get in there while I'm working on the bushings and clean everything up.