So 2 nights ago I stripped out the front suspension, to start replacing all of the rubbers and little protection hoods on the ball joints. After taking out the control arms, I saw that the holes in the x-member, on the right side, were worn out to the point where the bolts may actually pull through at some stage. The left side were worn into long slots. I first thought of welding little pieces of plate over the holes and re-drilling them.

However, I put that off to a bad idea, and phoned A1 Bakkie Spares, to find out the price of a "new" x-member and control arms. They quoted me R500, just the rubbers for the whole thing cost me R565 from Nissan. So I went to Nissan, and they were willing to take back all of the rubbers but 3 of them which amounted to about a R60 loss.

Then I went to A1, and looked for the suspension. I found this one, it's marked as 2005, which is complete with all of the stuff in as good as new condition. They guy first said that he should take the ball joints and tie-rod ends of, as they weren't included. I then offered to give him all of the old suspension bits I took off, including the struts I replaced with "new" 1400 bakkie ones(which I also bought from them), and he agreed to give it to me for R500.

Sorry for the long winded comment, but I was very chuffed with myself, and am very happy that I now have a virtually new front suspension in my 1200. One can never be to careful when messing around with the suspension and steering when you want to use big power in a car.