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My build/adventure thread


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Before you measure from the tires, lift a wheel off the ground, give it a spin, and watch the tread where you're hoping to measure from--and see if it wavers back and forth. I adjusted mine quite a few times before realizing that the measurements kept changing because the tread wasn't perfectly straight on the tire!

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  • 2 weeks later...

So far I've found once cool trail in Montana. There's a guy here who is also from California that has a sweet fj who's been my wheeling buddy here so far. Besides school I've been doing a lot of biking and a lot of dealing with awful parkers. Now to the good part!

 

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Registration and everything is SO much simpler here than in California. It took about 15 minutes and boom they handed me my new plates and registration. Another awesome thing is that the plates happened to have the year of the car on them, which I thought was pretty neat.

 

Let me know if you guys have any suggestions of what to do or and requests of things I can take pictures of!

 

 

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Ironic that the bad parker has California plates. Looks like your in Bozeman.

 

I lived in Great Falls for awhile so everything I know in Montana is in that area, so would be quite a drive. That being said, the Big Snowy Mountains are neat. Crystal Lake there is snow runoff only and it is a small lush island in the plains. Probably the only place in the northern plains where ferns grow. Good hiking.

 

The big and little belt mountains around Helena have some nice Backcountry. Great hiking, camping, and snowmobiling. Nice natural ski hill too at showdown, no artificial snow. Helena also has some mines and hot springs around to explore. Also a float down the Missouri through the gates of the Rockies is awesome. Get a permit to float the Smith river, that is cool as well and takes multiple days.

 

Lincoln is a neat little town, home of the Unabomber.

 

Madison river is nice, has great fishing. It is where the movie A river runs through it was filmed.

 

If I think of more I will let you know.

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I cant say for sure, but I feel like every state has much better registration processes and pleasant employees. The "DMV" and vehicle inspection here in Washington blew me away. Super easy, really fast and best of all its all considerably more affordable.

 

Didnt even know you left CA. When did that happen?

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Ironic that the bad parker has California plates. Looks like your in Bozeman.

 

I'm actually in Dillon! County 18 (first section of the license plate) is Beaverhead County. I can't remember what number Bozeman is off the top of my head. I'll be going there a lot though since I have family there.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions! I'll definitely have to check some of them out, I want to do a lot of exploring. There's not a whole lot in my immediate area.

 

 

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I cant say for sure, but I feel like every state has much better registration processes and pleasant employees. The "DMV" and vehicle inspection here in Washington blew me away. Super easy, really fast and best of all its all considerably more affordable.

 

Didnt even know you left CA. When did that happen?

I got here last Thursday. Registration was so easy, and I didn't even need an inspection. I just brought in my title and money and they handed me the plates and everything. A permanent sticker here is only $40 more than a year in California!!

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

I've been slacking on posting lately, but I have a lot of pictures for you guys!

 

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Looks like I'm at the limit, so I'll continue in another post.

 

 

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I have a Canon Rebel t5i, that's what all of my pictures on here are taken with

 

Do you do any editing on them? If so, what do you use? I'd like to use my camera more but I'm not really sure where to do once I have pictures.

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Do you do any editing on them? If so, what do you use? I'd like to use my camera more but I'm not really sure where to do once I have pictures.

 

I know you asked Micah, but I'll offer my 2 cents. I shoot with a Canon 80D and post-process in Adobe Lightroom. It's pretty powerful and relatively easy to use. I know how to use Photoshop, but to be honest, it's too time-consuming for me, and I just want to shoot photos, not create photographic artwork. Lightroom does enough for my needs now.

 

You will always get the best results shooting in RAW instead of JPG.

 

If you're really looking into learning more about photography and the associated tools for photo editing or management, consider browsing the forums over at www.dpreview.com. Even though there may be photography buffs here, you'll get much better information there than on a Pathfinder forum. :)

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I know you asked Micah, but I'll offer my 2 cents. I shoot with a Canon 80D and post-process in Adobe Lightroom. It's pretty powerful and relatively easy to use. I know how to use Photoshop, but to be honest, it's too time-consuming for me, and I just want to shoot photos, not create photographic artwork. Lightroom does enough for my needs now.

 

You will always get the best results shooting in RAW instead of JPG.

 

If you're really looking into learning more about photography and the associated tools for photo editing or management, consider browsing the forums over at www.dpreview.com. Even though there may be photography buffs here, you'll get much better information there than on a Pathfinder forum. :)

Thank you! I actually got started in photography with an all-manual Minolta film camera my dad gave me, then the Nikon D50 I have now, but the last few years I haven't done very much (just tonight I went through the last pics I took with it; Hot Rod Drag Week 2016). In the past I've stored pictures on my dad's Lightroom and I loved how simple it was. For now I'm just using folders in Google Drive to store them but I'll have to figure something out.

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Do you do any editing on them? If so, what do you use? I'd like to use my camera more but I'm not really sure where to do once I have pictures.

 

I use Lightroom for pretty much all the pictures that I edit (I don't edit all of them). It definitely gives the most freedom to bring out the lighting and colors of your pictures in the easiest way. There's an iPhone app for Lightroom as well, and unlike most photo editing apps it lets you do a lot.

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Hello,

 

Just want to say that this is a great thread, your mods, photos, and info!!! I have been reading these forums for the last month and today I just bought a 2001 QX4 with 98,300 miles on it. Per the carfax it has 2 previous owners and zero accidents. I'm looking to put some new tires and possibly new wheels on it too. It currently has 245/65/17s on it but I'm looking to put bigger tires on it, I'm leaning towards the BFG KO2, but maybe even some Mud Terrains! What is the biggest size I can go with before I have to put spacers on? I prefer to not have to do a lift so I don't mind a little trimming. At the most I would do would be a 2" spacer lift. Thanks for all of the info on here!

P.S. I'm trying to post a photo but cant figure it out!

Edited by gaps18
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Would a set of 255/75/17 BFG Mud Terrains fit with some trimming? The reason I ask is I found a set of 5 brand new Jeep Rubicon takeoff wheels and tires for $950. I noticed that the wheels are for 5 lug and the QX4 is a 6 lug.....would wheel adapters work and would this size fit with trimming? Thanks for any info!!

 

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Would a set of 255/75/17 BFG Mud Terrains fit with some trimming? The reason I ask is I found a set of 5 brand new Jeep Rubicon takeoff wheels and tires for $950. I noticed that the wheels are for 5 lug and the QX4 is a 6 lug.....would wheel adapters work and would this size fit with trimming? Thanks for any info!!

 

 

Not to hijack the original thread, but that combo would require at least a little trimming even with a lift, and idk if it would work without a lift even with a lot of trimming. The biggest issue is the wheel adapters you’d need to make those 5 lug wheels fit. You can get 6 lug to 5 lug adapters, but they’re all at least 2 inches thick. With 2 inch spacers, 32 inch tires, and no lift there will be a lot of contact at the front and back of the wheel well when turning.

 

Those tires won’t fit with your stock wheels either though because at a little over 32” they will hit your strut. Generally, anything over 31” tall will require either a spacer or a wheel with at least 3.75” backspacing to clear the strut. 245/70/17 would give you another inch over stock tires, and would fit on stock rims/stock height with little to no trimming.

 

 

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Would a set of 255/75/17 BFG Mud Terrains fit with some trimming? The reason I ask is I found a set of 5 brand new Jeep Rubicon takeoff wheels and tires for $950. I noticed that the wheels are for 5 lug and the QX4 is a 6 lug.....would wheel adapters work and would this size fit with trimming? Thanks for any info!!

 

 

 

100% not worth the headache of doing a 5 lug conversion, and I wouldn't trust lug pattern changing spacers that big without them being hubcentric, plus even with a 2" lift your tires would rub like crazy with wheel spacers that large. It would have no chance of working without a lift without a ton of trimming.

 

You'd be better off getting a cheap set of wheels like these paired with a set of 265/70r16 tires

https://www.amazon.com/Pro-Comp-Steel-Wheels-Finish/dp/B00DJ654BW?th=1

 

Treadwright makes good tires for a really good price, if you're looking to stay under that $900 price range.

https://www.treadwright.com/products/warden-w2617e

 

With the wheels and tires I've linked you'll literally have 4 brand new tires and wheels for around $800, which is less money than those old Jeep wheels that won't even work with your rig, with the added benefit of bolting on and clearing with no problems without a lift.

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Hey guys! I have a couple things to update and ask, but I'll do them in separate posts. I'll start with this.

 

As some of you may remember, I ordered personalized license plates back when I lived in California. They took FOUR MONTHS to finish them, and didn't have them ready until like a week before I was supposed to leave for Montana. When I went to pick them up, they wouldn't give me the plates without registering them to the car, but they wouldn't let me assign them to my car because my registration was going to expire within 30 days, and they wouldn't let me have them unless I paid another couple hundred dollars to renew the registration, which I obviously wasn't going to do since I was moving. $100 completely down the drain.

 

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Here's a crappy picture of what they look like. I did see them in person when I went to try to pick them up, and they are absolutely beautiful. I chose 4X4NP because it kinda has a dual meaning as either 4X4 no problem or 4x4 Nissan Pathfinder.

 

Anyway, onto the reason for me sharing this. I don't want these gorgeous plates to go to waste, so if anyone in California (the plates are located in San Jose) wants them I will sign them over to you for free. They are already paid for.

 

The deadline to pick them up by is December 1st. Somebody please take me up on this!

 

If you're interested, pm me and I will give you more info and we can figure out how to sign them over and stuff.

 

 

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Onto my second topic. I've posted a couple pictures of my buddy's dark purple FJ Cruiser, hopefully you remember it. Anyway, we got into an unfortunate situation (which I won't go into detail about). Basically what ended up happening is some drunk girl took the keys to his car and literally drove it into a lake and got it stuck beyond reason. We tried to pull it out with my pathy, but his axles were buried so deep in mud that the d ring broke off of my tow hitch instead of him coming unstuck ): We took the 'L' for the night, and eventually decided to call an off road recovery vehicle to come get him out. By the time we got back up there the lake had frozen over, so his car was wedged in there pretty badly, and his interior was fully of ice as well. They literally brought a mini tank to get him out, and we got his car running and driving again with a little bit of fixing. Here's some pictures.

 

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The rig that pulled him out is sitting on the flatbed.

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