matty91se

Thanks guys!

Has anyone had the chance to explore the Forest Service roads outside of Greenwater on Highway 410? I've read on-line that there are some interesting trails that lead off of them, and the views look amazing as you get higher up out of the valley.

And I may have some of the dreaded Lower A Arm Compression Rod issues. It looks like the washer that is on the forward side of the frame bracket on the driver's side is missing, and the bushings are pretty shot. No wonder it was so squeaky. I wonder how oval-ed out it's gonna be? I wonder where that washer went, and whether I'm going to have to replace the whole assembly, or just the bushings and hopefully find a new washer?

Unfortunately, I have a Mon-Fri schedule!

Ha! I absolutely will be! Probably almost identical to yours, from what I can see. A couple more inches on the suspension, a couple on the body. It's my daily driver for the foreseeable future, so I can't get too far out there with it! It's also my snowboarding truck in the winters, so it needs to have good highway manners (Whistler is a five hour drive from Seattle), and I'll probably always be running more heavily siped/smaller tread blocked tires rather than the larger cleated mud terrains or crawlers. I need the snow and ice traction! One thing that was funny when we were leaving Tahuya was that we talked a Subaru wagon out of going into the trailhead, and he was trying to say that if my truck had been in there, his car could probably do it. He seemed to think that my Pathfinder had more in common with his Outback than it did with my buddy's Toyota. I guess in his mind, the TRD Tacoma on 32's was a whole different, more capable class of "real" 4x4. Who wants to guess which truck took the tougher lines all day? It wasn't the Toyota ... As you can see, he had to follow me:

Ha! We did most of the loop and mud lake (pretty dry compared to the videos and photos that I've seen). No damage, although the Tacoma's ECU had to be reset by pulling and replacing the fuse after it got wet (we think). Here are some pics:

That's right! It was Mister510 who was the other person in the videos. Yeah. We're both excited to go down there, but hoping to go super slow and steady so that we don't dent up our daily drivers! Some of those muddy, rutted hill climbs may be a bit more than I want to wallop through until I get a bit more comfortable. My risk tolerance threshold isn't all that high yet. If you get a weekend off anytime soon, we should definitely try to get out there!

I think we're switching it up and heading to Tahuya this Saturday instead of Evan's Creek. I'll make sure to get some pics. I saw some of the videos that Silverton and (can't remember who the other guy was!) posted from Tahuya, and hopefully we'll have as much fun! My buddy's running a TRD Tacoma with 32" BFG KM-2's, and I'll be in my pathfinder with 31" Yokohama A/T-S's. We're both newbs to the off-road scene, so I'm sure we'll be taking it pretty easy! Oh yeah, I noticed that the guys in the videos were running with out center covers on their Legos. Is it standard practice to pop those off before going off road so that they don't get cracked or lost?

Thanks for the advice! As my pathfinder is still stock (and twenty years old), I'm guessing that the "easy" trails will be my best options. The NPORA meet-up sounds interesting. It'd be interesting to see what people have done with lifts and other mods and what that allows them to do on the trails.

I'm in Greenwood and work at the University Medical Center. No pics yet, but I think we're going to try some of the "easier" trails in Evan's Creek this weekend. Hopefully that will give some good pics!

Hi! I'm new to the forum, even though I've had my Pathfinder for quite awhile. I'm in Seattle, and while I've mostly used my Pathfinder for skiing/snowboarding and very light and occasional off road driving, I'm ready to get a bit more aggressive with it and do some more of the wrenching myself. I'm a rookie/newb in many senses (I just changed my own brake pads for the first time), and am excited that a forum like this is available!