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I've been looking for an R50 for a while now, and went to check out a few that were posted on FB/Craigslist today. I ended up walking away with this diamond in the rough. It's a 1997, 4WD, with the LSD (of *course* I checked for the sticker...before even test driving it!). It's got around 220k on the clock, but the previous owner had taken very good care of it. No real leaks, the interior is clean, and while it's got a few little bumps from being 22 years old, the paint is surprisingly not completely oxidized (pretty common in Arizona heat). I'm going to spend the summer just combing through everything and getting it back to 100%, but the first mod on the list is tires and a mild lift. Maybe a keyless entry for convenience before that.

Cold today...

Engine swap! I’m gonna pay extra attention next time I’m in 4LO and see how difficult it is to feather the throttle over obstacles

It's been a thought. I think I should part ways with my Frontier KC 2WD and want to find a 1st gen Frontier SC CC 4WD instead...which, of course, my lockers and brakes would be direct swaps to (and I've got an entire spare rear axle and suspension to make it 5-link rear, if I'm so inclined). Just a thought, though. I can't haul steel with an R50 unless I get a trailer. Not to say the truck can't get through obstacles. That's never been a problem. Always doing it gracefully, however...I think that's how my passenger slider ended up against the kick panel. Nay. But, I'd love to put a 2wd VQ into the Frontier if I keep it. Didn't see any mention of logs. Saw "Jersey beach" which had me thinking about sand, empty glass bottles, and some t-shirt joke about Jersey girls not being trash ("trash gets picked up"). I'm glad you have a different experience; I need to hear that, but also wanting to confirm our usage of 4L is the same. If your terrain can relate to what's in that video (that sums up my entire region and the trails I run) with prolonged grades and big dumb obstacles, and you're dropping to 4L to scale obstacles like those, then that's what I want to confirm. I'm not expecting it to idle over anything, but I don't think my expectations of the truck are unrealistic under throttle either. I assure you I've already built my truck up the way I want, and in terms of drivetrain and traction, the only core upgrade I've not done is crawler gears. Hard to not feel frustrated when I've taken all the right steps to make the truck more capable, only to realize its weakest link is probably some stupid transmission control module.

Agreed! on all ends Sent from my LM-G710VM using Tapatalk

What I enjoy about these events is being the underdog. I'm always the smallest truck there. The guys in these groups have some really nice Xterras and Frontiers, sporting 4"-6" lifts, 33"-35" tires, some SAS'd. They're not used to seeing some puny "stock" R50 in the group on 32" street tires, so usually I just keep to myself before hitting the trails. By the end of the day, there's a lot more respect and questions about the truck, so I really appreciate that. But yeah, honestly, I'm embarrassed to see the truck lunging like that. It is hands-down the thing I despise more than anything on my truck. I have no doubts about the truck making it through an obstacle, but it simply can't crawl. Crawler gears are always on my mind, but I'm not sure it's enough improvement. Here's a video the event two years ago with the same spotter, and it caught him off-guard there, too. It's most notable around the 1:10 mark...

Well, two years later and Cargo Rack v2 exists now. It's not quite done...I jammed on it all last week, late every night (seriously, I hard slept) so that it would be somewhat usable for the CANVAZ 2019 trip over the weekend. From prior posts here, the issue was clearance for the fridge, and there was just no easy way to re-work v1 to make it fit. So, I bought some more steel and got to it. Same considerations as before, but I struggled to find a similar configuration that let me keep my two crates and incorporate the fridge. The floor space in our trucks just simply isn't wide enough, in my opinion. The anchor mount positions are inconveniently and oddly located, too. I spent countless hours redesigning a setup that met my needs, only to realize there was just another issue to resolve. I think I went through about 5-6 designs in total...it was exhaustive, to say the least. ... Rewinding for a moment...I bought a fridge slide several months ago for a long road trip in our new Telluride. Here's how that project turned out, btw... I've been meaning to do a write-up, but basically, I'm using a cheap solar charge controller to regulate the charging on a 35Ah Harbor Freight sealed battery. The fridge runs off the 2nd battery when the car is off, and runs on the car's battery (while the 2nd battery charges) when the car was running. This was good enough to keep the fridge running in the car overnight. However, for part of my trip, we stayed in cities for two nights, and the lack of driving the 2nd day didn't charge the battery enough. Not that we kept perishable foods in there, so it wasn't problematic. ... Anyway, it was already planned to use that the slide and battery setup over to the truck. The fridge slide is a bit oversized for the fridge, so it's one of the reasons I struggled to get suitable dimensions on this redesign. Another issue was the anchoring to the truck. I did not want to take the same approach on v1, where the feet hang off the frame wherever. I was playing with some ideas for a rail for the rack to slide onto, but that also became a little problematic and somewhat of a waste of resources. I opted to make floor mounts that squared up the positions, so that eventually I can make another floor rack that's suited for other purposes (noting that v1 and v2 have been specifically for camping use because they incorporate a slot for a table...not something I really need for any other use). The mounts use simple 2.5"L x 1.5"W x 0.75"H plywood spacers, and then two pieces of 0.250" plate welded together. The spacers are needed to clear the carpet and such. The metal parts allow me to recess the socket bolts and to give me anchor points. I bent them up to help guide the rack in (this is where I wanted a rail of some sort to connect the front and rear mounts), but also to keep the rack from striking the hatch opening. Shown attached... For mounting the rack, I welded in some round steel tube to prevent the square tube from collapsing when bolted down. I then added in a 3/4" plywood base on the lowest level, since this anchored down my tool box. The upper shelves use 1/2". I welded in tabs to support all the shelves, and screws are used underneath to hold them in. I still need to add some expanded steel on the upper hoops behind the head rests, and better/more tie down points for the upper shelves, and complete the shelf area above the fridge space. I apparently don't have a pic of the rack filled up. But it looks like this: The slots left of the fridge are for a crate+lid, and then a dedicated spot for ratchet set. The space in front is where my toolbox is. The 2nd battery mounts to the right of the fridge. Ignore some of the wireframes in there...I used those to mimic the wheelwells and hatch opening. As you can see in the sketch, there will be another tailgate, but that's another issue in itself. Finally, one fundamental change about this design vs. v1 is that the rack slides directly in and out; it doesn't require me to turn it at an angle. That's why I was trying for the rail approach, just to make it easier to move in and out. The width at its widest is 46", and is 34" wide at the top bar. Rack height (excluding mount height) is 30". Max depth is 31" at the main level, and shortens to 24" at the upper shelves to account for the seatbacks, which can recline up to 3 notches.

Well, this event has come and gone. Almost didn't make it, but found my way there. Long story short, I spent many sleepless nights working on a project (cargo rack v2) during the week, and it was hardly finished come time to leave. I left my house way later than I wanted, and it was after my kids returned from school. They were happy to see me, but bummed to not go (they wanted to but also wanted to stay home for other things over the weekend). I was bummed not going with my little buddy, and he was pretty upset, so I almost just flipped around to head home, scrap the trip, and just get some much needed rest. As soon as I hit the freeway—literally seconds after merging on—I realized that my R51 buddy (Vic) in my local group was right in my blind spot and working his way up to the event. So we pulled off at the next exit and caught up, and I was convinced to head up. I'm glad I did. I only got one trail day in on Saturday, since we had arrived late on Friday and everyone had pretty much headed home by Sunday. The trail day Saturday is what's below. Unfortunately, Vic realized that one of his front CVs wasn't engaged and we couldn't get him past the 1st obstacle. We suspect it was broken before the trail, but it left him in 3wd and unable to continue. You can see in the 1st pic we were already coming down some big steps...for what it's worth, his truck made it back up that step in 3wd after he had to turn around! Something I've really come to hate about my truck is the drive-by-wire + AT setup when in 4L. I've got a few appearances in the 1st video, but you can see in each scene that it looks like my truck is lunging through obstacles. The reality is that I'm feathering the throttle, and am slowly increasing the revs before the torque converter just grabs and goes. You can hear the rev-ups, too. Then the slightest pedal-off drops the truck. You can see the spotters reacting to it, as if they think I'm gunning it. Fact is, I'm applying gas as slowly as I can. I totally hate it...I'll have a separate post about it, hoping to find a solution. Anyway, enjoy. I did an interview for a Nissan Nation Podcast, too, so I'll post that up if it comes to fruition.