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04 Build Thread (R50)


joshrichard
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I’ll start with a little backstory: A little before I turned 15 my dad and I were looking at 4runners(3rd & 4th gen), Mitsubishi Montero SPORTS, Tacoma’s, And Xterras. I loved 4runners, we used to have two 4th gens, and a 3rd gen that was absolutely perfect before it was totaled. Then one day when I was at a friends house I looked out the window and saw this maroon little 4runner looking thing. When I went outside to my surprise, I saw a Nissan emblem with Pathfinder written on the back, I was in love. The only pathfinders that I had known were the R51’s and I’m not a big fan, especially for a first car, just much too big for what I wanted/needed. After searching around I also fell in love with the price compared to the 4runners. My search stopped when my boss was selling a little 5 speed manual Mini Cooper S. The price was right and it had a brand new engine in it, that’s what I thought I was getting, it was a sweet little car but not my style because I often camp and hike down in Arkansas. Fast forward a couple days to mu 15th birthday, I was in my room when my dad called me down to help get decorations down from upstairs. I was confused because it was March but I went out to the garage and there it was. A black 2004 Nissan Pathfinder with 98k miles, It was perfect.
 
It’s been about a year and a half since we got it, and now sits with 135k with some small surface rust.
 
I’ve been on this forum for a few months now and have been reading, asking questions and learning about these trucks. I’ll starter with the REPAIRS done since we got it:
 
-Cam shaft position sensor
 
-Rear main seal (though it still leaks after it being fixed twice yeah not happy about that)
 
-Fuel filler neck
 
-Ball joints
 
-New headlight bulbs
 
-MAF Sensor
 
-6 new spark plugs
 
 
 
 
Things that I’ve done (not repairs):
 
-All new speakers besides tweeters
 
-It came with a JVC Double Din head unit
 
-Came with a cold air intake
 
-Reese roof rack that now has a Yakima sticker on it (fake it till you make it lol)
 
-Came with shortened Antennae
 
-12 inch sub in the back
 
-5% tint
 
-New muffler
 
-Nismo sticker

-Rain deflectors
 
 
Things that I’m planning on doing:
 
I ordered the lift which included
- 1.5 spacers in the front
Yes I know spacers aren’t the 100% best but I’m not planning on doing any hard wheeling besides getting to camp sites and hiking trails for now. In the future I’m going to get heavy duty coils in the front for when I get a bumper so I’m going to do deal with the front suspension then.
 
- 2 inch AC coils in the rear
Decided to go with these because I often have a full car and coolers and gear in the rear. Also have a big bike rack when I Mountain bike
 
-manual hubs
 
-New Bilstein shocks in the rear for the 2 inch lift
I wasn’t planning on going with new shocks but my dad surprised me with them
 
My truck is actually sitting 1 inch lower in the rear at the moment due to it still having original springs. I was planning on getting the lift put in over thanksgiving break but things came up. I’m going to get it done before Christmas but hopefully sooner than later. I’m going to have a shop put it in because they can do it in a couple hours instead of me doing it in a couple days. Also my dad knows the manager at an awesome and they’re going to do it for $150 in labor cost.
 
-New bumper by next year
 
-Swing gate tire carrier
 
-Some cubes on the back of the roof rack for light when camping
 
-I have some brand new 32 AT tires
 
 
Sorry for the novel and I think there is a lot of stuff I missed but I’m tired. I will be adding stuff as they happen and will keep this thread updated.

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Looks nice. As a former KCitian I know you can find some mud down in Ozarks straddling S MO/N AK. OK has the Ouchitas for a trip someday. A truly epic trip is a Christmas/New Years trip down to Big Bend. It’s great that time of year & you can be off pavement fir >100mi & several days if you dwaddle.

Make sure your power valves are done.

I take it that’s an LE with the AWD option?

Funny to see the different center stack & console in those ‘04s-otherwise look just like the ‘02 LEs.

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Lmfao that roof rack does look like my Yakima !!
Before I got more interested in wheeling and doing bigger overlanding Trips I mostly hiked a lot and went from trail head to trail head which basically meant i only needed the truck to take me to some basic remote trail sites/ campgrounds . During that time i ran bilstein 5100s and MD ome coils in the rear. Was a decent set up at that point which I was pleasantly happy with... however, night and day differences with the 5165s and HD rear coils if you decide to change in the future ... but won’t be necessary unless you wanna do some more strenuous trails and climbs.

Have fun with the build and keep us posted. Watch the wear and tear on your lower trailing arms (as I’ve consistently had issues with bearing wear on oem arms). As for the bumper there’s a post by rain goat on nothing but bumpers for the r50. I know two very detail oriented members here [user]TownDawgR50[/user] and [user]hawairish[/user] who do tons of fabrication work for our trucks. Literally, they put thought into every cut and bend in their products and i can contest first hand that their quality is matched or even superior to arb brand products. Truly built to last quality and reliable performance parts.

I hear they’ll be vendors here soon. Having some of their work on my truck and seeing it on other trucks here on the forum, I’m excited to see what else they come up with. Definitely check them out when their shop hits the forum and do some binge reading if you haven’t yet already. Tons of awesome things you can do with your truck and places you’ll be able to go.

Welcome to NPORA and good luck towards the rest of your build.

Btw if you haven’t already seen threads regarding a “missing link” I highly recommend you get one of those before you hit any trails. It’s a vital but missing part on your subframe crossarm that Nissan for some odd reason never included. IMO having that sooner i believe would have saved me from doing a costly subframe repair that had made my car undrivable. There’s tons of posts regarding these and i believe it’s even in one of the general tabbed “topics”.

Awesome truck, I love the black. Once again welcome and best of luck. Don’t stay up too late reading all the threads ;) i know they’re addicting hahaha


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Cool ride buddy and welcome. Tbh if you've already done soo much to the truck yourself then letting a shop change out your springs is really a waste of that $150. It's really easy to do, an hour or 2 tops if you're new at that
Whichever way you go should be fine. Crank this bad boy up.
I drive a 1998 Terrano myself (Japanese R50) with a 2.7L turbo diesel. Have it about 11yrs now and the only mayor issues I've had with it is gearbox (had to replace it once), AC and radiator. It had 94K on the clock when I got it and should now be around 240-260K (gauges stopped working few years ago, couldnt find another that worked in my truck).

Congrats with your pathfinder....

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Looks nice. As a former KCitian I know you can find some mud down in Ozarks straddling S MO/N AK. OK has the Ouchitas for a trip someday. A truly epic trip is a Christmas/New Years trip down to Big Bend. It’s great that time of year & you can be off pavement fir >100mi & several days if you dwaddle.

Make sure your power valves are done.

I take it that’s an LE with the AWD option?

Funny to see the different center stack & console in those ‘04s-otherwise look just like the ‘02 LEs.


Mud is fun every once in awhile lol. I actually went to the Ouchita mountains with my family a couple years ago. We felt really dumb when we went in and corrected us about how we were saying it . Yes forgot to put power valve screws in repairs. Yes I have the all mode system. Now I’m curious what your center stack looks like
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Lmfao that roof rack does look like my Yakima !!
Before I got more interested in wheeling and doing bigger overlanding Trips I mostly hiked a lot and went from trail head to trail head which basically meant i only needed the truck to take me to some basic remote trail sites/ campgrounds . During that time i ran bilstein 5100s and MD ome coils in the rear. Was a decent set up at that point which I was pleasantly happy with... however, night and day differences with the 5165s and HD rear coils if you decide to change in the future ... but won’t be necessary unless you wanna do some more strenuous trails and climbs.

Have fun with the build and keep us posted. Watch the wear and tear on your lower trailing arms (as I’ve consistently had issues with bearing wear on oem arms). As for the bumper there’s a post by rain goat on nothing but bumpers for the r50. I know two very detail oriented members here [user]TownDawgR50[/user] and [user]hawairish[/user] who do tons of fabrication work for our trucks. Literally, they put thought into every cut and bend in their products and i can contest first hand that their quality is matched or even superior to arb brand products. Truly built to last quality and reliable performance parts.

I hear they’ll be vendors here soon. Having some of their work on my truck and seeing it on other trucks here on the forum, I’m excited to see what else they come up with. Definitely check them out when their shop hits the forum and do some binge reading if you haven’t yet already. Tons of awesome things you can do with your truck and places you’ll be able to go.

Welcome to NPORA and good luck towards the rest of your build.

Btw if you haven’t already seen threads regarding a “missing link” I highly recommend you get one of those before you hit any trails. It’s a vital but missing part on your subframe crossarm that Nissan for some odd reason never included. IMO having that sooner i believe would have saved me from doing a costly subframe repair that had made my car undrivable. There’s tons of posts regarding these and i believe it’s even in one of the general tabbed “topics”.

Awesome truck, I love the black. Once again welcome and best of luck. Don’t stay up too late reading all the threads Set_2_wink.gif i know they’re addicting hahaha


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What if I were to go with LR springs on the rear instead of HD with the 5165’s? Yeah the bumpers that those two are making is very excited. I also like the coastal bumper. I’m going to order the missing link from SF creations. I enjoy the black but I like my vehicle being clean and black is a pain...
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Cool ride buddy and welcome. Tbh if you've already done soo much to the truck yourself then letting a shop change out your springs is really a waste of that $150. It's really easy to do, an hour or 2 tops if you're new at that
Whichever way you go should be fine. Crank this bad boy up.
I drive a 1998 Terrano myself (Japanese R50) with a 2.7L turbo diesel. Have it about 11yrs now and the only mayor issues I've had with it is gearbox (had to replace it once), AC and radiator. It had 94K on the clock when I got it and should now be around 240-260K (gauges stopped working few years ago, couldnt find another that worked in my truck).

Congrats with your pathfinder....

Sent from my SM-G960U1 using Tapatalk



I would do the rear springs but the front is what I know will be the time consuming part and I might as well have them do that and get the alignment while it’s in.
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LR coils are HD, I had medium duty ome (old man emu) coils and 5100s recently. It really depends on what you plan on doing with ur truck how far you wanna go with it and how rough the terrain wil be that you plan on going through. Nothing wrong with the 5100 and MD ome set up and I never had any issues but the 5165s and LR are definitely a worthy upgrade to me that have noticeable differences in feel and performance.

Again just kinda depends on what you plan on doing. IMO, if you’re gonna contemplate on doing that ‘later on’ then I’d just do it now and not waste money on a set up with MD and 5100s that you’re gonna get rid off sooner than later for the LR upgrade if that’s gonna be on your mind.
Tons of posts on people’s takes on the set up and in the end they’re both way better than stock lol so it’ll be up to you on what you want.

Nice call on ordering a link... definitely first priority to get that done before anything else. I slap my head to this day on not having that earlier.


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Just as an FYI:

OME Springs do not come in Heavy Duty for the rear (only the front). AC Springs are very stiff but actual spring rate unknown. LR Springs for the rear come in 2 spring rates but I don’t think we have anyone who only got 2-2.5” out of them, most have experienced 3-4”.

 

Bumper Options (4):

 

*ARB Sahara



*@hawairish /@TownDawgR50-2 well respected, experienced & detail oriented NPORA members who have been custom fabbing for friends but are about to announce a collaboration to provide much needed R50 specific items. See their threads-this is who I’m waiting on.

 

*Coastal Offroad

 

*Dustin Perreault

 

*WAM (former Tactical Armor Group aka TAG aka Kennesaw Mountain Accessories aka KMA aka Blue Lake Offroad) Previous iterations of this company have a terrible rep but supposedly it’s designs were bought out & it’s under new management. It would be very interesting to have someone buy one & report back if all the quality control problems are fixed.

 

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I don’t have tow hooks, did they not come on the LE’s?

They are on the corners kind of below the radiator-the tie downs. Someone will crosscheck me but I believe it was technically only the driver’s side that’s rated though people have used both. As you will note, these are a somewhat low & unusual location for them-all part of the reason a bumper that is securely fastened to the unibody would be beneficial. (As an FYI, don’t bridle between them straight under the radiator, at least one person has seen the support crush a little from doing that.)
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So today after work I got in my truck right after driving it to a work site and when I started it up it was fine but I got in and put it in reverse and when I put it into drive it was tougher than usual but I was slightly rolling back so I didn’t really think much of it. Then when I was starting to accelerate I pushed the pedal and it did nothing at first then slowly kinda started speeding up but quickly and then revved to 3k and lurched into third. What does this mean???

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They are on the corners kind of below the radiator-the tie downs. Someone will crosscheck me but I believe it was technically only the driver’s side that’s rated though people have used both. As you will note, these are a somewhat low & unusual location for them-all part of the reason a bumper that is securely fastened to the unibody would be beneficial. (As an FYI, don’t bridle between them straight under the radiator, at least one person has seen the support crush a little from doing that.)

I looked and there was nothing? I took a video but there were no hooks at all? There are spots in the bumper for them but there are no hooks
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On 11/27/2018 at 11:33 AM, joshrichard said:

I don’t have tow hooks, did they not come on the LE’s?

 

I know somebody with a 2000 who didn't have them.  I gave him my old ones since I didn't need them due to my bumper, but you should be able to easily find a pair for cheap at a local junkyard.

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They are more of a loop/tie down. I believe all R50s were made in Japan so it had to have them but some are removable. I know many of us have taken the rears off. I think the fronts are removable as well. Maybe somebody did that? Mine are looking a little ugly but here’s what they look like. 2785065ced2a56bf5486cede68a5d46c.jpgc8332d40dcc7ce8bd54b6d1021ac98bb.jpg?

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They are more of a loop/tie down. I believe all R50s were made in Japan so it had to have them but some are removable. I know many of us have taken the rears off. I think the fronts are removable as well. Maybe somebody did that? Mine are looking a little ugly but here’s what they look like. 2785065ced2a56bf5486cede68a5d46c.jpgc8332d40dcc7ce8bd54b6d1021ac98bb.jpg?

That’s odd because I’m only the second owner and the owners before me were an elderly couple so I wouldn’t imagine them taking them off. Those aren’t there, they’re just two little holes and mounting holes for it.
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  • 3 weeks later...

Update: Went off-roading Saturday afternoon and hit some fun trails... really showed off my sagging springs in the rear though. Lift is going in today and I’m so excited to not feel like I’m going to flip every time I go around a corner, and I’m not even going fast . ec3d1a686d02449783cd9fd492dfc429.jpg
Saw this picture and it made me laugh because I feel like this is everybody on this forum lol

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