wheelmanLS1

Yeah the 3.0 is powertrain-wise exactly like my dad's '00 Accord. He checked off every option when he got it but I think he'll still be jealous if I got an Acura badge. At least for a little while until he goes and gets his new car. He was thinking about bumping up to an Acura TL but decided he can get an Accord with every option for cheaper. It will be his sixth Accord in 25 years.

I know this is an extemely dire personality flaw, but it's all about the image and looking cool. I'm a gaddam teenager, why else would I do it except for the shallow status benefits?

Cool. That's the year I was looking at. Now if I remember correctly, Mrs. Pickles doesn't drive a stick does she? While 5-speed Cl's aren't common that's what I had in mind. I'd much rather have a manual Civic than an automatic CL.

Nah. I think the arrangement is that I get to park the Pathfinder in his driveway for maybe a month and he gets to yank off free parts for his own during that time.

Oh damn I forgot to even mention that aspect of the story. John (unccpathfinder) and I had just finished our brake overhaul on my Pathfinder. Cross-drilled rotors, metal-matrix pads, new calipers, new stainless steel brake lines, brake master cylinder. My mechanic kept pointing me in the wrong direction as to why my pedal was soggy and we just kept on replacing parts. Still never figured it out but evidently we did a good enough job for me to stop in time. Chop shop is an awesome idea. Or chop driveway, whatever you have room for. Now we can only sell what's left as metal, nothing but? Damn that's more work than I anticipated. I feel like we'll be dumping a lot of unwanted stuff off Asbury chapel.

Yeah, funny how my tiny little Tercel wasn't driveable anymore. I was delivering in the Pathfinder that afternoon. I didn't get any pictures of the R50, but it was relatively new... a 2004 and it was to be repaired.

I've destroyed a Pathfinder. Actually two. Strike me down, Oh Lord, strike me down! But it wasn't my fault. A car three cars ahead of me decides to take a left turn but cannot make it because of heavy traffic. Which in most cases would be fine except she didn't turn on her blinker. So the red Mazda behind her stopped kind of short and the silver R50 Pathfinder behind the Mazda stopped short but safely and I stopped safely behind the silver Pathfinder. I looked in the rear-view mirror and everything kind of went in slow motion. "Oh @!*%," I said calmly. A red F-150 came blazing in at what I thought was 25 or so but later confirmed at 35 mph. New paragraph. So he hits me dead-on and I get thrown back into the seat and the coin drawer goes flying... change all over the place. I (the Pathfinder), gets propelled into the silver R50, at which point I (my body) gets flung forward again, and he gets shoved into the Mazda. I got the worst of it because of the 3 actual hits, 2 were on me. One in the back, and one in the front. I am healthy, thank Allah for seatbelts. And I, the police, and insurance decided it wasn't because of my tinted taillights that he couldn't stop because he actually had a lot of room to slow down but he never even hit the brake until he actually hit. He was texting on his cell phone. For example, if there had been a refridgerater sitting in the road most of you guys would stop regardless of whether or not the refridgerater's taillights were visible or not. While I do feel bad about my taillights, he came in so fast that it didn't make a difference. But lesson has been learned, I will never tint them that dark again (I had been meaning to go back and fix them by not putting so many coats on but never got around to it). Insurance totaled it and valued my Pathfinder at 4780 and I had guessed 4800 (Nice guess, wheelman). I'm buying it back for 700 and selling stuff off it. I've already narrowed my new car to a Acura CL or a Civic, both of which get great mileage. My delivery car kind of crapped out on me the week before so I'm out of two cars within a couple weeks. Here's my delivery car for those of you who are interested: Toyota Tercel Possible replacement: Damage: It doesn't look that bad in the picture, but the bumper had been pushed into the wheel and it couldn't be turned one way or the other and the accident assistence guys couldn't bend it back out with their mighty muscles and crow bars. By the way, my oil filter relocation was completely fine... surprise, surprise! Oh, and the engine compartment had been pushed in and the battery had been pushed back. Radiator I think got cracked... it was leaking antifreeze. And the back had pretty much been protected by the tire rack... it would of been a few replacement stuff and a little body work on the tailgate.

And repacking bearings. Could we do that at your place?

Thanks for the offer. Can you do ball joints? Since I have everything off, I'm getting all four ball joints done, bearings repacked, along with all the brake stuff. If you know how and are willing to do that (a good days worth of work), jesus christ, you're a lifesaver. But I really don't want to tie you up in a project you didn't anticipate to be so large. Right now I have another mechanic that does custom and performance work who is doing everything for 300 and I bring the parts. That still comes out slightly lower than my first mechanic quoted, but I'll be getting everything done with it that needed to be done anyways. Ball joints were squeaking.

I've been switching between it and my delivery car, but it really only gets on the road once a week or less. The Pathfinder is going to my brother when he comes back from college in a few weeks. And I'm not paying for these repairs since it's not really my car for much longer. I don't mind doing the work because at least I'll get to see one of the upgrades done that I never had the chance to do.

I thought I might share what kind of rotors I'm going with. Stillen. http://www.stillen.com/product_detail.aspx?sku=NIS5000 Yes, they are cross-drilled, and at one point in time I thought they were crap too. But I've only heard hear-say about them getting cracked, no first-hand info.

Cool. Easy enough. But my mechanic mentioned bearings. Why would he do such a thing?

Well when I went to pick it up I had him explain everything to me again since I'm not a very good listener over the phone. I do need new rotors. Now doesn't that involve repacking the bearings and such? And when I flush the system, how exactly would I go about doing that? Is it the same as bleeding the brakes? And when I said I needed braided steel hoses, I meant I wanted them. Is there anything wrong with them?

I evidently have a bad caliper and my mechanic says usually when you get a bad caliper, you replace the brake lines while you are at it because it's possible that clogged lines caused the caliper to fail in the first place. Expensive, expensive; 950 he wants. So I'm doing this all myself. I guess the only place to get calipers would be Autozone or another such store. But as for brake lines, I need to upgrade to stainless steel. Is AC stainless steel lines my only option? And would you guys use them yourself if you were in my position? Oh, and there are options for non-lifted and lifted Pathfinders at AC as far as brake lines. I have a minor budget boost about an inch all around and it's still not out of the question that sometime down the road the Pathfinder may be lifted (not by me, but my brother has expressed an interest for it). Can I get the ones for a lifted Pathfinder just in case? I figure the lines will just sag a little bit. And, if it was lifted (3" is all I'd let him do), it would be a suspension lift as both me and my brother feel that body lifts are unsightly on a truck that stays mostly on the road.

Would I want one? No. Would other people? You betcher ass. If Nissan built this they would be stealing some serious FJ sales. Of course, they will not. And it would not go by the Pathfinder name- those rear doors are too small for how up-sized they've made the Pathfinder. That's in the Xterras size range.

I know my plan back in my Pathfinder days was to use Xterra seats. Most everything matched up within a 1/2 inch so fabricating was going to be easy breezy. And the back seats, according to my measurments, wasn't too far from fitting perfect either.

I'm pretty sure it simply darkens everything which leaves the mirror effect exactly the same, just darker. Hard to explain... yes the windows will be darker, no it won't add to or detract from the mirrior quality. In my opinion, I wouls scrape off the mirror tint so it matches the front windows assuming you are getting them tinted as well.

Use imageshack.us . Highly recommended.

Yeah, the factory cupholders are cheap and flimsy. You can only fit certain sized cups in there and cannot fit value sized cup (the plastic ones that get bigger at top) or soda cans. Plus, it looks stupid to have the lid open while you're driving (I'm picky though) and the passenger cannot get his out easily. On the other hand, you have an SSR cupholder that flips out and your girlfriend mentions, "Damn that cupholder is hot." Translation: when a girl thinks your car is hot, she thinks you are hot. That is why I have a SSR cupholder... and a butterfly key since I've mentioned stuff that flips out. Girls find that sexy too.

Good luck finding an SSR in the junkyard. I have reason to believe that SSRs are simply never wrecked... only 40-50 year olds get them and how often do responsible adults get in a wreck? That and the SSR is such a low-volume truck. The best place to find them is on Ebay. They are made by a German company called Fischer. The dealor will charge $50, you can get them by this link, or you can go to the showroom and slip one out of an SSR. It's not something a dealorship would expect so it's extremely easy. They just slip right off, no screws or anything. Just wear some cargo pants or I had the guts to just walk out with it in hand. They just don't expect it. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/THE-BEST-CA...sspagenameZWDVW

Closed.

Here was my solution for an automatic '95. It is from a Chevy SSR and costs $50 at the dealorship or about $20 off Ebay. But going off fnl's cupholder, imagine one of these bad boys screwed into the top of the face of the glovebox. That's how I would do it and I am extremely picky about my interior's functionality and much more importantly how it looks. In the location I mentioned, it would look sick as hell but you would not be able to put a cup in while your glovebox was open.

rocky-road.com will price match to Summit and rocky-road.com is so much easier to deal with and correct me if I'm wrong, but Summit has a waiting list on Thorley headers, right? I've been away from the Pathfinder scene awhile so sorry for any outdated info.

That's right, I-6. I keep forgetting.

Ouch! Well there goes that custom banner.