RainGoat

Hey Tom - post up a pic of your truck! It looks good - I’ve been hearing from people seeing it on the road! You can just edit the above & add a pic. Or go to the new folks thread & post an intro.

Yeah, cats & cars don’t mix well

Ha ha - back in ‘03 when I did the White Rim Trail with my now wife, she had to get out of the truck several times, she just couldn’t handle it. It can be fairly overwhelming. Awesome place SW Utah!

And then there’s me. I’ve treasured mine so much I’ve been savoring the experience & admiring them in a box for over a year! I’ve got to keep to my MO of a 2yr modification process. I’m the turtle [emoji217] of R50 modification!

That compressor looks like my posting. It works very well & is a world different from the 2 side compressors. It handled the OME HD & HD LR springs with ease - zero sketchyness. Well worth it. I expect that style is all the same & you should be able to find it for $80-90

Excellent! I occasionally check out PCoA but it’s great to have some Aussies on here. We have a New Zealander regular & some South & Central Americans but mostly it’s North Americans (Canadian & US). It’s always interesting to see the variants other countries have available. My understanding is that the R50 platform has some decent aftermarket support there - as opposed to here. You also get some crossover from the Patrol, which we don’t have at all. I love your rack - very Australian. Excellent use of the roof rail mounts. Your rear transverse HiLift mounting is unique as well. Love that it came with that bumper & UHF. Are those two longitudinal lines down the sides if the truck something unique or not that uncommon is Australia? Are they “bumpers”/side protection from other vehicles or a kind of pinstriping. Welcome! Nice handle too!

I know it was an option in the ‘02 LE & QX4 - presumably in ‘03 & ‘04 & I think it predated ‘02 in the QX4. I specifically opted against it in ‘02. If you thought the ‘04 Toyota Nav was bad, I think it was the industry leader at the time - and Nissan was the back of the pack of the very few who offered it then.

Ditto - though only USDM ‘03 & ‘04 Pathfinders have the remote hatch release anyway. It existed earlier in the QX4 (how much earlier I’m uncertain but I know the ‘02s had it). I’m told you can retrofit the remote release. [mention=32880]ferrariowner123[/mention] did it to his ‘96 & kindly gave me an excess harness for it years ago - I have yet to get around to it.

What did you end up doing with the cargo area floor cubby? Did you pull the cover & span it or is it now permanently sealed?

Nicely done & good use of space!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/182445594617 I’d highly recommend color coding if you have the patience. In the long run it will make rewiring & diagnosis easier. SUPER happy with this item from BP Automotive btw, superb quality. That said, it’s bulky for sure. Not a problem at the A-Pillar for trucks without air bags but probably an issue with them. It’s just going to be ALOT of wires. While less robust, that’s part of the reason I’m going with one of these below on the Pathy. @02_Pathy put his in front of the shifter & it’s perfect. 8 Gang & the lights are down out of your peripheral vision where they won’t bother you at night. Plus, much easier to wire. Though admittedly not as robust as the system I put in the 4Runner. Photos courtesy of @‘02_Pathy Auxbeam 8 Gang Switch Panel Automatic Dimmable LED Touch Control Panel Box Electronic Relay System Car Touch Switch Box Universal for Truck ATV UTV Boat Marine SUV Caravan https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07KZLB74K/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_F5H8DPTXKEBYW0XQJS9Q?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Yeah, we didn’t have much trouble running power for a dash cam & a microphone line for my new radio. Do the ‘03 & ‘04s have airbags in that A-Pillar? I’m jealous, the Pathy is not a great vehicle in which to have a collision. Side curtain airbags seem like a wise addition. I used to joke that in an accident, my wife’s Jetta would look like the first Mars rover landings.

His site does nothing to decrease my Patrol lust

Yea! I would think that would open a sizable new market for him. I’ve seen [mention=37543]TowndawgR50[/mention] pics & they replicate yours.

Ugh! What an answer too - get a new car! Geesh! For what it’s worth, on one if the many times my ‘93 Maxima was broken into, they sawed halfway through the steering wheel, until their saw broke (found it on the floor well) & then just drilled out the club’s lock. When it was repaired, they couldn’t find a steering wheel & I had to drive with a slot cut halfway through my steering wheel for the rest of its days (I was too lazy to ever take it back).

If you need to download, my pearl of wisdom for Gaia is to load the Satellite layers separately as they’re the most likely to hit the cap. Also, if you’ve downloaded an area you’re unlikely to go back to anytime soon, at least delete the satellite imagery to give you more room before the 100K cap. If the download is hanging up for unknown reasons, it’s probably the MapBox cap. I wish they would just build into it a warning that said “This cannot be downloaded as it will exceed the MapBox Tile Limit”. It took me way too long to figure this out. I tend to aimlessly wander so I like having a large area in great detail.

I’d agree with all that. It made me sad [emoji20]

I’ll be curious to see how Gaia works for you on a head unit. I’ve used it about 3 years on an iPad. I’d recommend Gaia but the download limitations on MapBox products are very annoying. The biggest PITA to any of my trips is downloading maps for off-grid use. Here’s just one thread that talks about the issue - it’s unclear to me how this will impact a head unit. https://help.gaiagps.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360000809607-Can-t-download-MapBox-Streets-HD-map

Well, the R50 offroad market is small, cheap & diminishing here in the U.S. Sadly, while Pathfinders are common here (I literally see a couple on just about every drive I make), they’re rarely used as offroad vehicles. In almost 20 years I NEVER ran into another one on the trail (AZ, UT, CO, NM, CA, OR, WA, BC, ID) & think I only saw one other one and it was as minimally modified as mine at the time. In the last 5 years or so, there’s been an explosion of interest in offroading in the US and at the same time these trucks are now dirt cheap. Sadly, they’be become a bit of a throw away vehicle. It doesn’t take long on FaceBook to have a very sad impression of the R50 community these days. Conversely, offroading has been a part of daily life for alot of Australians. My Australian friends here talk about things like how their Mom, as a teacher, checked a Land Cruiser out of the district motor pool for her teaching duties. Following PCoA & corresponding with a couple Australians, R50s offroad are fairly common there & suppliers are numerous - many of them laugh at us buying ARB because that’s the most expensive of more than a handful of options they have. IronMan is just one of a few of many Australian brands that already have a domestic product but are only now considering distribution in the US. That said, I concur that they are unlikely to find a market willing to pay their prices (anyone familiar with the Toyota market would find our products ridiculously cheap but our options virtually non-existent. Everything on my Pathfinder cost a literal fraction of what something similar costs for my 5th Gen 4Runner). The Toyota world is full if 20 & 30 somethings willing to throw gobs of their disposable income at their truck. I’d love to see more Australian manufacturers bring their products here. The video that sparked the IronMan debate was rife with oddities & we already have an example of a successful application. I suspect we’ll soon have a second. If the guy who decided to distribute IronMan products here has an employee with an R50, I expect it’s a personal purchase. Given our tiny market, buying an R50 would likely exceed any profit margin they can expect on ALL R50 products they’ll sell here. I imagine our best avenue to more R50 products is a personal interest by the staff who will be deciding which products to bother importing. Frankly, I’m impressed with a professional response on their part in the face of a non-compliant customer. I don’t really understand what that truck owner’s goal was? All complaint, no attempt to fix or get his money back. I doubt any of the forum regulars would have responded similarly. IronMan already has a rep outside the R50 community & it’s pretty good. It’s my hope that one guy, and an overreaction on our part, doesn’t get us labelled as a community not worth supporting. I have to admit I responded from a jaded perspective. I spent more time on FaceBook R50 sites in the last 2 weeks than I ever had before. The level of immaturity, ignorance & stupidity I observed was mind numbing & depressing. The NPORA forum is typically a respite from all of that & has tended to make me feel superior to what I read on the Toyota forums - FB negated all that.

How is your new windshield holding up? I think you noted yours sits outside like mine. If it’s doing well, where did you have it done? Did you have to pay for it or did you have it covered under comprehensive on your insurance- they’ll usually cover it as a safety item. If not, what did it cost you. That’s an issue I wouldn’t mind addressing this winter. Thanks!!

Good news on that front. Apparently, a member of the U.S. IronMan staff bought a 2004 Pathfinder that they intend to test the R50 products on.

Just to close the loop. This was IronMan’s full response.

Double post

Yeah, his front definitely doesn’t look correct, but his response is even more bizarre. I don’t see what he gains. I just wish it had played out in a normal fashion so we’d have an actual answer. I don’t begrudge you your reservations, I just think the responsibility for the uncertainty no longer lies with the company. I would have liked to either see them not honor their commitment or have us learn that there was indeed a particular problem with his units or that their units are systematically problematic. The current situation does no one any good and everybody ends up a loser. I would not be surprised to find those springs pulled from the US market - R50s are such a small market here, it’s not worth their trouble if they’re met with these kind of customer responses.

FYI, I reached out to IronMan as I’ve heard nothing but good things until now & I’d love to see more Australian companies distribute their R50 products here. Here was their response - which, honestly, fits my impression as well. I couldn’t understand how he would be unhappy with it & yet not do what little effort was required to close the loop on follow up. I don’t expect you’d find any different response from any other vendor; and probably worse.