RWC5S2

You should be able to access it trim inside the rear right. It is a pain but you can get the inside trim off enough to check it out. i pulled mine out looking for places to put in a CD antenna mount, which did not work. Just be real carelull with the little pastic screws and fsteners,

I could have removed my shields and most likely never had a problem. I just figured I would try the other way first.

My 03 had the same problem but it was after I installed my skid plates. Had to have a "GOOD" friend press the brake and gas to track down the rattle. I ended up adding a washer for the correct spacing on the shield but it was an easy fix.

Making up some flyers sounds like a decent idea. There has to be a few that would enjoy doing some wheeling. And wheeling in a group of like minded folks is always more fun. Keep us posted on your efforts and results.

It is a shame that more folks do not know about the Pathy's capabilities. They will never be rock crawlers but they sure do every thing else well. I notice that the choice of off-road vehicle can vary a lot on geographic area's but the danged Jeeps always seem to have the most. Gotta be the after market parts availability plus Jeeps have been around for 60 years. Good to hear you are going to do some mod's on yours. The Pathy's sure do look awesome lifted and tricked out a bit. I get all kinds of looks from mine with the A/C lift, strut spacers and bumpers. They can not believe how much better it looks, not to mention the Jeep crowd being blown away that I can run with the best of them, other than the rock crawler part. Wonder if it be worth your efforts to put an ad in the paper (or similar) inviting R-50 folks to meet at a local off-road spot to enjoy a day of wheeling. Just a thought. Hope you get your mod's soon..............you will be a very happy camper with the results.

I am in So. Calif......Thousand Oaks, Ventura County. I have seen 1 other R-50 that has a few mods but nothing special. I am running the A/C lift, full under armor, custom rear and front bumpers and 1" strut spacers. I agree that the Pathy owners should hang out like the Just Empty Every Pocket folks do. I joined Point Mugu 4x4 but I am the only Nissan. Got a couple of Toyota's and Bronco's. Seems around here the only off road use the Pathy's get is the speed bumps at the mall. Heavy sigh......

I agree with Simon. You have to take the whole thing out so why not just start from scratch with a new starter/solenoid? I have found that those things usually wear out pretty close to one another so it is not worth the risk of having to tear it all apart again in 3 months. Be sure to check out your ground straps/cables. That can some times cause problems.

With regard to the 3rd member getting stuck, or being stuck, after removing the nuts, mine was a bitch to break free. Took a lot of tapping and careful creative use of a large screwdriver to get the dang thing loose to slide off. I saw nothing when removing mine that should have damaged the bolts in the process of removal, unless they got frustrated and just began pounding them with a small sledge hammer. I thought the lockers would come with the correct spline count for the axels. Should be a 33 spline if it is like mine. But, I only swapped out the 3rd member for a LSD with 4:66 gears so it was a straight plug and play application.

I agree. It is ok for very short term only. Kind of like the little spare tires......ok to get you to some placce to get it fixed only.

Mine is on the right side. Have no idea on where yours might be. Any leaks are almost always on the pressure side and not the return side on the lines. The pressure side has the more robust couplings to handle the pressure. If there is a leak that bad you should see drips of power steering fluid or find the actual leak while turning the wheel back and forth. And hey, it just might be mice. lol

Hope it is that simple. Be sure to check the lines while you have some one turn the wheels to look for leaking, etc.

I switched out the 3rd member on my 03 R-50 to put the 4:66 gears in. The bolts all seemed to be a tad righter than I would expect but by spraying them with liquid wrench, or similar bolt lossener, it was not that big a deal. None of the bolts broke off but I am quite sure I exercised much more caution than a shop would do. I think they just tried to hurry the process along and that usually spells trouble.

I have a hole drilled in my skid plate for the oil filter. I have had no problems despite bouncing/skidding on nasty rocks. My skids are 3/16" thick. I might not do it with a thinner metal.

Check power steering fluid, make sure it is not empty. Check power steering lines for leaks, also causes loss of fluid, check belt tension on all pulleys. A squeel like that is usually power steering. Will scream at full lock and also when just being used if fluid is too low.

Yes, the 33's will fit but you will have to trim the wheel wells. Yes, the 33"s will look quite skinny. On anything over 31's you should plan on trimming the wheel wells of the majority of the plastic that extends beyond the connections but still inside the wheel well. It will also help if you drill some holes in the splash guards and use zip ties to pull the guards deeper into the wheel well. Kind of a pain to reach around attaching the ties but is an easy fix for most of the potential rubbing sources. There is just a lot of excess plastic/rubber junk inside the wheel wells that is there for mainly commestic purposes. Also, the 33x9.50x15's are not the best choice for offroading in mud or real sandy conditions. Just too dang thin so even airing down to 10lbs will not give you the traction really needed. The only way to abvoid that is with LSD rear end. It will help a lot. As I said above I ended going back to 32"s just to get a fatter tire for the off-roading.

You can go 33x9.50x15, 32x10.50x15 or 32x11.50x15. In either event you will rub with the AC lift but it's not hard to fix and they will not rub all that bad unless you really stuff the tires into the wheel wells. Just use a Saw-zall or good utility knife to trim away the excess plastic in the wheel wells. You can trim off a lot of plastic without ever showing on the out side. I ended up selling my 33x9.5x15 and going with the 32x11.5x15 as the 9.5 was just too narrow in the sandy Mojave Desert. They looked pretty good on the street and rode great.

Guess I should check my own posts to see what info I was going on when I was looking to swap the gears. I had lots of helpful info being sent that I used for tracking down the new gears. I guess we proved the guy was talking trash on where he got the units for me. At least he got the right diff's. Must of got lucky and found a R-50 with LSD and 4:63's.

I never took your statement as anything personal, rather the passing of information as you understand it to be. I hope I am right since that would make life easier for those wanting to upgrade gearing. Hopefully the guy was not blowing smoke my way but that would not surprize me at all. I figure he would call it whatever I wanted as long as I am sending the cash. I do recall that some of the front diffs are not compatible due to a high pinion or the like, I just do not remember which is which. I would love to see a photo of a verified Xterra front diff to see if it looks like mine.

I was dealing with an out of state junk yard (can we still call them that) and explained that I wanted to swap out the stock 4:36 to the 4:63 gears with LSD. The info I had was that the Xterra would also fit and that Xterra's made more LSD rears. I was sent a rear pumpkin and front diff, both of which were marked as coming from a 2002 Xterra. I don't know if the guy made this up or not but it all looked exactly like my old units, just bolted right up and I accepted his info as being correct. If you do a search for all the posts made by rwc5s2 you can see the info replies I used to search for my new gears. This forum was my primary source for info on where and what to look for and what would work. I did run across info that 4:90's were made for the Xterra but I never pursued it since the 4:63's had arrived, been installed and I really like what they did for street and off-road performance. I imagine the 4:90's would really make the humble Pathfinder a beast. Oh well, guess I was just too impatient. I will only add that the LSD made it possible (actually pretty easy) for me to get through obstacles that I could never make before. It was also about half the price I had received to install lockers on the rig and I never wanted a rock crawler to begin with.

I got my 4:63's out of a 02 Xterra.......both front and rear. Plugged right into my 03 Pathfinder. I also went with the LSD option. It would have cost me too much to go with an open and then add the ARB locker. My LSD has been a fantastic help for me when off-roading and IMHO it is a great ad-on. A locker is obviously better if you are trying to build a "rockcrawler" but that was never my intent. I just wanted better gears and a rear end that would send power to both wheels when going over larger obstacles, sandy conditions, pucker bushes and the normal stuff found in the Calif deserts. I love the LSD. It exceeded my expectations. But, like I said..............it is IMHO only. Oh, I am running 32's with this setup and the gears have greatly improved the performance making the Pathy run much closer to the stock setup where you could creep and crawl in the dirt all day long.

I got mine frm the folks that do the AC lift. They have taken some serious hits and have worked out great for me. I put the front, middle and rear on my 2003. You can buy a package deal or just single skids. The diff plate is not worth the trouble.

You might want to check out the cost of buying 15" steel rims and appropriate 15" tires. It could be a lot less money than buying the 17" tires alone. Other than that it is looking good.

From a strictly legal aspect, forget the gun. Too many laws and variables. That is the safe answer. My thoughts for going on such an adventure is "better to judged by 12 than carried by 6". But, as Glenn pointed out, you have to be very, very comfortable doing this. Those survival whistles are ok just from a stand point of having a compass, light, watertight match case, mirror and whistle in one small package. The quality is highly suspect on most of them. Herbivores like moose and deer are not your problem, unless on the highway or you get between mommy and baby moose. Then mommy will stick your survival whistle where the sun don't shine. Your main worry is getting stuck some place, possibly being injured and having to wait for help. Bears then become your problem, along with basic survival and the fact that all your potential enemies do not have 4 legs (this is where my thoughts on a gun come in). That and I have been around weapons all my life and I look at them as merely tools for specific needs. It really does boil down to plan for the worst or at least expect some problems, and if it does not happen you are obviously going to be having way too much fun.

To cover the more serious aspect of the trip and potential trouble on the road: A gun is not a bad idea as long as you know how to use one and are not affraid to in a tight situation. And I do not mean some 300 round AK47 or such drivel. Just a good hand gun. Just keep it in a safe place and never tell any one about it. At the very least I would get a GOOD QUALITY knife...nothing from China. A good multipurpose knife like a K-BAR. It will cut small kindling for a fire as well as hack larger branches for fire, walking stick, general camping needs for a knife, great protection, first aid (splints etc) a good knife is hard to beat if you are stuck in the boonies. Strike any where wood stick matches and a water proof container (all located at Wal-mart), even some of those magnesium fire starters.....the KBar will handle the rest. You have some real good info being offered in these postings. Most of the items can be stored easily in cheap see-thru plastic and remember you only need to carry enough to last for a few days at a time. Some of this stuff may seem paranoid but you are going a long way through some beautiful but dangerous lands. There are lots of idiots that get to become a buffet in Alaska each year due to acting like they are on a trip to Disney Land and not where wild animals out number you by about 100 - 1. A little common sense and a little paranoia is not a bad thing. One last thought............a couple of those new LED crank to charge flashlights. Cheap and work real well. I keep one in the car and a few aroun the house for power loss, etc. Some even have AM-FM radios.

I agree on changing out all the fluids for sure. I would begin the trip with all new tires, even the spare. The Al-Can Highway is excellent in eating tires and virtually every road in Alaska will eat tires. Not so bad near the coastal area but the interior is a "B". Too much freezing/thawing/freezing/thawing. Road safety is mandatory. Having come around a corner only to see a female Moose with calf looking down at me can be quite humbling. They stand about 9-10 feet high, are all over the place and seem to love to jump out in front of cars. You will lose the battle so watch the speed and what is ahead of you at all times. Alaska weather can change in a heartbeat so carry warm and cold. Rain is common, especially near the coast so be prepared. If you have never been there, Alaska will over whelm you. It is beyond huge, wild, beautiful or any other colorful phrase. Bald Eagles are as common as pigeons. Is is quite common to see multiple road kills per day. Some are humongous. The Police keep locals on speed dial to come harvest the kills if they are fresh enough. Lots of drunks wandering around in and out of traffic allover the cities so watch for them. For sure keep enough food/water/first aid stuff for at least a few days in the rig at all times and keep it all fresh and new. I would also carry a FRS Radio to go along with my normal CB. Lots of folks carry them now and they are far superior to the CB for range and clarity. Make sure you have the right attachments to keep your Cell Phone charged while in the vehicle. Carry some extra vehicle fuses ( the right sizes) and that your car bettery is in excellent condition. Take a decent camera. You could easily fill a couple of 4gig SD cards..................just too much to see and take in. It is truely the Last Frontier. Go ready for adventure. Dam, I need to get back up there.