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Been lurking here a while, bout time to introduce myself and "Hoss" my '99 Pathy. We are based in Tassie (Tasmania, Australia) I picked up Hoss back in October last year, I was in the market for a 4x4 rig for our tow vehicle and off road adventure machine. It would be used to tow our camper trailer, and to to go out bush and explore the wilds of the Tassie wilderness. It had to meet several criteria: Cheap to buy initially Parts availability and parts pricing off road ability towing ability/power reliability So my search began, in Tassie and the Australia mainland all 4x4/camping/dirt bikes basically anything outdoors related etc... attracted the "covid tax" (a slang term down here for everything going up in price due to the new demand for camping and outdoor activities as people don't like to travel now) so all the Land Cruisers and Patrols that were generally pretty well priced were now pulling 2-3 times as much, $3k vehicles selling for $12k-$16k ? So I turned to internet searches of "list of most underrated 4x4" and "4x4 underdogs" and "Bang for buck four wheel drives" and so on... Three vehicles popped up regularly on the lists, and videos: Nissan Pathfinder, Ford Explorer, and Jeep Cherokee (the second two being as most of these lists/videos were American) Ford Explorers and Jeep Cherokees were not a very popular vehicle down here, they are here but just not in the numbers that Nissan Pathfinders are. I watched a lot of video reviews, and build logs, and made lots of parts and price searches across all three vehicles to build an idea of where I wanted to go. At the end of the day the Pathfinder just ticked all the boxes. So the search for the Pathfinder began. There was a white one on Facey Marketplace, it had been listed for some 6 weeks (hmmm, what's wrong with it???) so I went for a look, not bad, some knocks and rattles in the front end suspension, ran fine, and the CV joints were shot, over all the body work presented well, just had high kms and mechanical work that needed doing well within my realm of capabilities (probably a turn off to most), I left it there and told the fella I would think on it, I figured I was pretty safe walking away what's a few more days as it had been listed for 6+ weeks Went and looked at a green one listed at approximately $1k more than the white one, and it was a real mess, a real "single mum's taxi" kids rubbish and food and stains all through the back, no evidence of recent services or service history for that matter, shot tyres, scratched and flaking paint, and a mouthy lady owner who "Ain't budging on price, I know what I got!" So she got a Hard pass! from me. I went and had a look at a couple of Jeeps as well, they didn't really float my boat, being in Tassie and they not being terribly popular they tend not to be looked after as well, and a lot of the interior parts in them were falling apart and rattling, creaking or just didn't plain work, both had electric windows that had failed. So we come back to the first one, old mate had rung me asking if I was still keen? I said yeah, but I want to bring a buddy to look over with me to make sure I wasn't missing anything. He said he would consider offers, "oh hell yeah got him on the hook" looks like I was the only looker. So my buddy and I went, I had cash, and was willing to walk away if anything didn't feel right, or I couldn't hit my pre budgeted purchase price. Long story short, my buddy picked up a couple of little things I missed, raised them in front of old mate, and we got it for less than half the original asking price, winner winner chicken dinner. The cheap purchase price allowed me to budget rebuilding and servicing a lot of the vehicle as I seen fit. So I have spent the last few months in between Christmas and camping etc... collecting parts and have spent the last few weeks getting her done. List of works (so far): New CV joints/axles D40 Nissan Navara factory freewheeling hubs (2nd hand from wreckers) New timing belt kit New water pump New thermostat Cooling system flushed, and new coolant Automatic transmission serviced and new fluid Engine serviced oil, oil filter, air filter New steering rack boots New front struts New strut mounts New front raised springs (Kings) Second hand alloy rims (off a Patrol for offset clearance of the struts with bigger tyres) New Falken Wildpeak 265/75 R16 New Rear drawer 2nd hand Fridge slide 42 litre fridge (leftover from our old camper) 2nd hand roof cage, all repainted and tidied up Custom made roof rack mounts Hi-lift jack and holder Roll out awning UHF radio external speaker (UHF was already in car) The obligatory before picture: As she sits now: My custom roof mounts, these allow a lower mounting of the roof cage keeping wind drag down, and allow 6x bolt removal of cage. Awning and jack mounted: Rear drawer and fridge slide setup: Things left to do: Trim and straighten front bar Seat covers Missing link and skid plates Electric brake unit install Secondary battery install Get out and use her Thanks for reading, I aim to keep this updated as things get done, and hopefully have a pretty complete build thread before long. Cheers, Fr8Train

Welcome! I dig the build. Jealous of the aluminum front bumper option you guys had available down there. Is the rig a diesel or petrol? Looking forward to seeing more of it out and about.

The service manual shows the gaskets going in dry. If the coolant ports on the heads/manifold are pitted, though, I'd be tempted to give those surfaces a skim of silicone before doing them up.

Cheers, the two lines you refer to the top one that reaches back to the tail lights is just a black and blue vinyl pinstripe, that will be going. And the lower line is a self adhesive rubber bumper, they were pretty common during the 80s and 90s on Aussie cars, basically a door saver for the car parks. They are just fitted with double sided tape. The Hi-Lift I wanted it fitted in a practical position, and didn't want to crowd up the sides of the rack too much, as the rack's main purpose was for carrying the kids swags when the camper is hooked up. Normally the swags go in my work ute, but we are trying to move away from using the work vehicle on camps as we want to get out in the bush more, and trying to explain to my boss why the work ute has a massive scrape up the side wouldn't be much fun.

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!

Welcome! Looks like a good find and ol' Hoss found itself a great new lease on life! Best regards from the 'states! Sent from my Mobile Communications Device