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Well it looks like my old build thread got nuked as it was made in the "lost period".... so here's a new one! The last one was "maybe" going to be a build thread, so this one's the "confirmed" build thread! I'll begin with a brief review of the old thread and a few updates from the fall to bring us to today. This is my first "project" vehicle and more or less is my entire journey from knowing very little about working on cars to wherever I end up. I picked up my 2003 Pathfinder LE in June 2021 with 242,000k on the odometer. The vehicle was in good shape with some relatively minor rust in the usual spots, but none in the strut towers which is great. I believe I am the third owner and the vehicle has spent the majority of its life in the interior of British Columbia - so limited rust, but not much. Here she is the day I picked her up: Here's what the Pathfinder replaced, with the Pathfinder lurking in the background the same night I brought it home: Biggest disadvantage of the pathfinder so far? No dash spot for Lenore on long trips. She's tried to do this a few times on the Pathfinder's dash but she always falls off. Oh well, safety first kitty! The very first thing I did upon getting it home was address the power valve screws and a few other things. Upon the advice of some of our wise members, I did more or less every gasket above the valve cover gaskets (including those), the rear thermostat, the rear thermostat elbow hose, PCV valve, and of course the power valve screws. I didn't replace every vacuum line and crankcase breather hose as I had trouble finding the breather hoses locally. This was a mistake, as it turns out. The previous owner stated he had just done spark plugs, and they looked quite good. This is almost as deep as I got: Upon starting the car, it sounded terrible and the SES light immediately came on: vacuum leak. I tried a few times to diagnose the issue without pulling the everything I'd just done apart, but to no avail. I ended up re-doing most of my work as the line that had cracked was the one that ran underneath the lower intake plenum: basically back where I'd started! I got that sorted and did a coolant flush. This is the first time it ran properly after my work: Admiring it from the garage in the rain: After that I insured it for two months to drive it around in its stock form to do a bit of a shakedown to see if anything major would pop up before putting my lift in. It's a great vehicle to get me to the bike park and back! Here it is during that time: After being satisfied with my time with it during the shake down, I committed to lifting the vehicle. I went for OME HD front on KYB struts and LR 9447s out back with OME shocks. Unfortunately the shop I ordered the shocks from sent me the wrong ones, clearly for a 96-99. They returned them at their expense and I got new KYB shocks out back for now. If I get an SFD or similar in the future, I'll revisit the rear shocks and stick something else in there. I also added a front SFcreations skid plate and missing link to the vehicle, did a reasonable amount of rust removal/repair on the rear quarterpanels, a new exhaust, and probably some other minor things I'm forgetting about now. I did recently check the RMS as I thought it was starting to leak, but it turned out to be a stupid little crush washer in a plug above it that had just started to leak. The RMS itself looked great with non-factory RTV that looked pretty fresh in the area - so at some point, someone else had to deal with it. I need to get photos of the Pathfinder with its little lift in AND the decent tires - right now it is on small little winters that don't look particularly good. For now, I have the following things to attend to over this season at a minimum: Replace front right strut + bearing - the non-OEM strut bearing broke within 500km of replacing it, it's taken the strut with it too - right now it clicks as it rotates. I have the stuff and just need to chuck it in when I get a chance. I'd love to repack the rear LSD before the end of the season. Driving the vehicle around this winter has revealed it's quite worn out. I have a possible front diff issue I'll need to look in to at some point: occasionally, the vehicle will not engage the front right CV when shifted in to AWD/4wd mode. It engages and the light turns on within a few seconds of travel, however, but is unable to do so at a stop if the issue occurs. I've already checked the CV and the diff and transfer case fluids. This might require a deeper dive at some point. The rear bump stops are non-existent. I've ordered a replacement set and I'll have to chuck them in at some point. I'd like to touch up the paint work I did on the rear quarter panels - the fade is far below my standards and worse than I know I'm capable of. I'll probably take the time to do some touch ups elsewhere, but it'll be tough to fade small areas as the paint code paint is MUCH darker than what my vehicle has faded to over the past 19 years. Maybe I'll see if I can get a closer match to the real colour somewhere. Looking beyond the "I'd like to do it this year" stuff, at some point I'd like to replace all the hoses and vac lines under the hood. Ain't broke, don't fix right now, and I have no reason to go in there at the moment, so I'll leave it for now. I'd like to install a transmission cooler and in-line filter. The stupid rear bumper is drooping a bit - I've reattached all of the fittings, so I don't really know what's happening here. I'd like to take care of that after I do some paint work. Oh, and the front bumper on the right (is there a theme here) is missing a fitting, so I should probably find one for that too. Beyond that? Who knows. I have dreams of a "fully built" pathfinder, but I'm not 100% sure this one is it. I wouldn't mind spending the money on a low KM, lower mainland/Vancouver Island example to do the "dream" build. There have been several come up in the past month or so, but I'm not really ready to spend 8-10K CAD on one when I'm really not convinced they'll keep their inflated value over the next 1.5 years. Until then, I'll keep doing maintenance and either cost-effective or somewhat transferrable mods should I move to another vehicle.

Mile Marker will not fit the 6 spoke LE wheels, Rugged Ridge will though

That is one calm cat! Mine hates car rides, though to be fair I haven't tried putting him on the dash. There shouldn't be anything to engage in your front end. If you tested with the front wheels off the ground, you might see one wheel spinning and the other not if one wheel has a dragging brake or something, because the diff applies the same amount of torque to both sides--so if one wheel is dragging and the other isn't, it'll spin the easy one. Same issue when the wheels are on the ground and one is on something slick. If you can spin a front wheel without the CV spinning, either it's got manual hubs that aren't locked in, or there's something very wrong with either the CV or the drive flange, and I wouldn't expect a mechanical failure like that to be intermittent. 4x4 not engaging until you're moving sounds more like a transfer issue to me. I'm guessing by your description that you've got the ATX14A (with the knob on the dash). I haven't had one to bits, but from what I've read there are two pumps inside, one driven mechanically when you're going forwards and one electric to fill in the rest of the time, and they're what makes the wet clutch engage and send power to the front end. If it won't grab until you drive forward, maybe that electric pump (or its wiring, or whatever turns it on) is getting flaky. If you haven't yet, start by changing the fluid, even if it looks okay. The fluid in the manual box in my '95 looked alright, but it quit sticking in 4x after I changed it. If that doesn't work, and there's no obvious damage to the electrical harness, the best I can do is point you to the TF section of the '03 service manual. I feel your pain on buttoning it up and having a vac leak. I didn't know VG30 and VG33 intake gaskets weren't the same when I did mine, and Rockauto sent me the wrong ones. At least it goes quicker the second time!

Those are some really nice photos!