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The old boy - 2007 R51


KiwiTerrano
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On 12/3/2020 at 7:39 AM, mjotrainbrain said:

That red Defender in the last pic is sweet! Your rig is coming along really nicely too, do you have other skidplate protection under the vehicle too?

Thanks, there's some unique vehicles in the land rover club that's for sure! One day hopefully I'll have enough cash for one. They're not cheap to buy (or run lol).

I've got a 6 mm steel treadplate skidplate under the sump. Have also got a fair bit more lying around to make a trans/transfer skid with. I just needed a better front plate to protect the radiator and trans cooler as the factory one is crap.

Edited by KiwiTerrano
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  • 1 month later...

Well, vehicle has been performing well. Went into the St James conservation area with the club to marshal the multisport event held there annually. Developed a bit of a clunk halfway through the weekend that then went away again. Didn't think much of it at the time.

 

Went to install my new sliders today and my mate mentioned that the rear sway bar looked a bit off. Turned out that I had completely destroyed the right rear endlink and snapped one of the bolts holding the right swaybar bracket on, allowing the bracket to bend and the bar to move about. Thankfully no collateral damage. The right swaybar endlink had completely lost the middle section leaving me with just two ball headed bolts sticking out of the mounts!

 

Was a right PITA to get the swaybar out though. I needed every Nm of my impact wrench to get the endlinks off on both sides. Not to mention getting an open ended wrench in behind the mounts is bloody tight. 13 years of coastal Otago salt (when it lived in Dunedin with my old man) were not kind to the endlinks. I have real sympathy for those who live in the US with road salt as mine wasn't bad by comparison.

 

Needless to say, it's not going back on unless the WOF guy pulls me up on it (and even then, I'll be throwing the swaybar and some new endlinks at him and telling him to fit it himself).

Took it for a spin and can't notice the difference to be honest. My old terrano with 11" shocks, now that was quite different with no RSB...

 

Sometimes I feel that the r51 just wasn't as well engineered as the earlier Nissans.

Edited by KiwiTerrano
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If you don't notice much difference in road manners with it off, I'd say maybe try again with more load (passengers and maybe a trailer?) and then some off-road testing then make a final decision on if you went to repair or leave it off.

 

When working on any car older than 10 here in salty Michigan USA I fully expect to cut, torch, or drill out at least 1 bolt for every job. Now I'm pretty fanatical about keeping corrosion away from anything that hasn't been ruined yet. Had to cut the front lower control arms off my 2003 4Runner, and my dad's 5 year old Tacoma isn't much better off.

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  • 1 month later...

Well, truck is ticking along nicely. Have fitted a set of rock sliders and extended upper ball joints. Front flex is better and no more bangs from the upper arm hitting the tower. Have left out he rear sway bar, honestly can't tell the difference onroad but it's much better off. Have done a few more trips with the club, she's pretty good.

Next mods will be PSR rear subframe spacer kit and a rear locker.

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  • 2 months later...

Hi, like the look of that Bull bar. I am looking at fitting an Opposite Lock bar to my 2007 R51but I am bloody confused as to which one fits! The instructions with the bar supplied to me says D40 Navara 2010 on and Pathfinder R51 but I don't know whether that means all R51's or just 2010 on. Did you come across this when you installed your bar?

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  • 2 years later...

Well it was disappointing losing a few posts with the server error.

Haven't done any real mods to the truck since I last posted though, have been busy driving the wheels off it though.

Here's a few videos from the last trip out (private land)

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOGvMdKEQ22CoD5ksYGn0smkCFEc4GKY80Mxmt6Dp-fX-XKgV3k0pAr6BJASu1Ybw/photo/AF1QipOtUTMWge_vG8Wy8pOB8oGZ3v1iP1SimVh28roi?key=TnlwdVQ2SFM0WGdYYVF6MFBsWHd4aDBkakItX2pB

Had to winch it

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOGvMdKEQ22CoD5ksYGn0smkCFEc4GKY80Mxmt6Dp-fX-XKgV3k0pAr6BJASu1Ybw/photo/AF1QipOLp89CL7Q64z78elyyAYVyACq4xVsNjCsnuSY5?key=TnlwdVQ2SFM0WGdYYVF6MFBsWHd4aDBkakItX2pB

 

Dented the front left fender more attempting this knarly climb, again had to winch 

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOGvMdKEQ22CoD5ksYGn0smkCFEc4GKY80Mxmt6Dp-fX-XKgV3k0pAr6BJASu1Ybw/photo/AF1QipPM0x95H7IawJN1Pj5_Y2K9pvIHOKSX-ZWxDh22?key=TnlwdVQ2SFM0WGdYYVF6MFBsWHd4aDBkakItX2pB

 

 

My mate in the Patrol really stuffed this line up (yup it's a NIssan)

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOGvMdKEQ22CoD5ksYGn0smkCFEc4GKY80Mxmt6Dp-fX-XKgV3k0pAr6BJASu1Ybw/photo/AF1QipOafky1zWP5jDl2uKKGjZq7eNw29iU8crc2jcyj?key=TnlwdVQ2SFM0WGdYYVF6MFBsWHd4aDBkakItX2pB

Took 3 of us all hooked up in line as an anchor plus a bit of digging to winch it out, front axle was buried half a metre deep...

Edited by KiwiTerrano
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  • 3 months later...

Well, finally did myself some proper mischief! Back in at the same spot as last trip. Was bumping up a step, on dry mud/grass, hard lock right, giving it heaps. Left front wheel came off ground and touched down - bang! No more 4wd...

Drive home 3 hrs to Christchurch no worries, which was curious.

On stripping the diff, turns out I'd snapped the internal shaft to the right side. Haven't heard of that before! Was initially worried I'd blown the spider gears.

Luckily I recently regeared my truck to 3.54 using diffs from a diesel R51, so I pulled the shaft out of my original 3.36 r180 diff and swapped it in. Flushed out the case with 3 cans of CRC, was quite a bit of finely ground metal in it... We'll see how the bearings hold up. At least diesel diffs are a dime a dozen here in NZ, the majority of Pathfinder and D40 Navara sold here were auto diesels so 3.54 is by the easiest ratio diff to get.

2SWKSf1.jpeg

Spider gears ok

1ozQffc.jpeg

Broken shaft

 

lYFPxZ0.jpeg

All back together 

 

This leaves me a little uncertain as to what to do if I keep blowing up R180s though. M205 are very hard to come by in NZ, though I could potentially obtain one from a Y62 Patrol... This would also enable me to do an Armada style suspension swap if I got all the necessary parts... My rear diff if already an R230 as Nissan never put the R200 rear in these in NZ as we do too much heavy towing.

 

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At least you had the part on the shelf! Hopefully it holds up. Sucks that they built a bigger truck, with a bigger engine, but downgraded the diffs. The R180 was what the four-cylinder W/D21 got in the front.

 

Spinning up a wheel and then suddenly finding traction does tend to kill things. I blew the front end in our snowplow doing that. Replaced the spiders, washed out the glitter, winced at the marks it left on the bearing races, buttoned it back up anyway. It's held up so far. We run chains on it now, which makes it much harder to get stuck, which reduces the abuse the diffs have to put up with.

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