Freddymac

Thanks for the info and your offer, 88. Can I get back to you in a couple of weeks as we are just going on holidays...Lost Wages here we come

Thanks for your input 88. I got a quote of $78 each from the Nissan Dealer. (I guess there's always the Bone yard) Do you know if there are aftermarket ones available? I was also wondering if the front end has a simular bumper that should be inspected for wear and tear?

Hi All The Nissan Manual for the 95 Pathy lists the rubber bumpers above the rear axle as 'Bound Bumpers'. My question is how important are these to keep the vehicle from bottoming out on serious bumps. I ask this as mine are hanging by a thread and seem to be quite soft. Is replacement critical on a vehicle with stock suspension with the Adjustable Nissan shocks?

Hmm you must have seen my drool marks on that page sly I also like these Austrian buggies http://www.outbackpinzgauers.com/pinzgauer_photos.html ...perfect for the next invasion of 'Der Fatherland', me thinks

Hi all A friend of mine turned me on to this site today. It may be of interest especially to Canadian Pathy and Landcruiser Fans. http://www.outbackimports.ca/ I had a chance to check out a Toyota 4x4 van imported by these people. The vehicle was in amazing shape for its age.

Hey CG We may have a touch in common, I assume that you look for new 'value'. My wife and I began cruising the backwoods of British Columbia this year looking for 'old value' from provincial records, archives and historical books. We tried revisiting sites that hopefully haven't been touched in years and looked for traces that are worth our time to exploit. Every time it got interesting, we had to turn back due to lack of fuel. I ordered what I believe is the Con-Ferr Blitz Can Carrier from Automotive Customizers last month. Yes it is locking, yet the can's cap be opened by a simple twist of the wrist. How to prevent the contents of the can from being pilvered? Take a measurement of the distance from one of the flanges on the cap closest to the padlock when the cap is tightly closed. Check out a local Marine store, such as West marine, and check out their Lifeline material (A Lifeline runs around a sailboat and is your last defense before going overboard. This plastic coated stranded high tensile steel cable needs a special cutter to cut it in one clean piece. I have used this stuff to protect my gear on my homes, vehicles and boats without issues for the last 38 years since I owned my first sailboat.) Oops my age is showing 3/16" OD should be thick enough to act as a serious deterent. (please double check the height of the flange as my order hasn't passed customs yet. pssd Drill a hole slightly larger in the flange and take the cap with you to your local Marine supplier. Knowing the measured distance from the flange as a given, add an extra 10% for the loop as you wind the Lifeline material through the hole in your cap flange. Have the clerk press a solid compression fitting on the loop. The concept is when you thread the cap back into your Jerry can, and loop the lifeline material into your padlock tight enough, it can't be opened without serious work. As Canadian gas prices are much higher than the US (much more so in remote communities in BC [thus more subject to theft]) the last thing that we need in our adventures is to be stuck in the middle of nowhere without our precious 'reserve' tank.. BTW: One of the owners of North Shore 4X4 says he owns two of the same brackets and refuses to sell them as the company that makes them is now out of biz. He sells the Jeep variety that can be pilvered by a child by simply lifting the clasp on the nylon loop and walking away with the goodies...let alone what a simple twist of the cap could make possible. Any information on the state of the company that makes this bracket would be much welcomed. Thank you Fred

Checked out the goods from the vendor last Sunday in the snowy wilds of North Vancouver. It was a bolt together winch mount/grille guard with a lot of years on it. The bolts had rust on them (which I consider a bad sign). The piece had been painted but obviously the prep work had never been done. The bottom holes matched the width of the frame mounts, yet 2 custom 6" triangular bracket would have to have been fabed to get the bottom part of the guard to even get close to meeting the frame. The top attachment point to the bumper/frame assembly were not available as an 87 has a very small bumper. My 95 has a chrome bumper considerable larger in volume with louvers for the air intake where the holes should be drilled to stabilize the top end of the unit. Without the top attachment points, I envisioned a groaning sound and a huge bang as the guard and winch under load, would leave a permanent dent into the unlucky tree that was deemed as the attachment point for recovery. I did a bit of math on the man hours involved to get this piece even close to what it would cost to have the same unit custom fabed in welded steel as I wished the vendor a pleasant day in leaving. Again, thank you for your input and interest in this project. Fred

"If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water." Ernest Hemingway

Hey derogate I've done a bit of 'closer' listening (and deep thinking) today while driving home from work. The noise is more pronounced when slowing down that speeding up. Here are a couple of theories of mine: 1) When speeding up the noise level will increase even though the sound dampening in this truck is working as it should. The tight band audio spectrum that I'm hearing inside the vehicle may be masked out by the working noises of the vehicle and enviro sounds such as the air being pulled over the body as the vehicle gathers speed. 2) When slowing down, especially in hard braking situations, the engine noise, drive train and wind noise is diminished at a far higher level, thus allowing me to physically hear an actual drop down to what my ear would consider half an octave. Beyond that the noise disappears. Based on these two observations, plus the fact that these tires are very noisy beyond a crawl, I would venture that the design of this tire may have been an early candidate for current noise cancelling tech. If I may be so bold, in case this is not familiar to this forum, Noice cancelling in audio electronics is achieved by recording the background noise as a variable wave via a highly sensitive mike and reversing that same wave back to the origin into the 'speakers. When the positive wave is introduced to the opposite negative audio wave at the right balance and volume, the two waves should cancel each other out. In other words: DEAD SILENCE. For example: Wanna sleep on a very noisy plane when you get the 'back of the bus seating' on a plane with wing mounted jets? Buy a pair of Noice cancelling headphones if the device has senitive enough mikes, top quality tuned speakers, highly processed Analog to Digital Converters, and of course enough battery juice to also cancel out the ambient cabin noise of Junior trying to play 'Doom4' on his PSP at full volume right next to you. (Btw: You should consider listening to a piece of music that you love with this technology with the least amount of ambient background noise possible. I swear you will never listen again to the same piece without wiping a tear out of your eyes for sheer intensity..) I believe that tire technology, at this time, tries to meet the same requirements by a clever use of offset lug heights to mimic the same concept. We all know that lugged tires will introduce noise. The faster the tire turns, the louder the tires will howl. I believe that the outer lugs causes the most noise as the tire squirms to keep your baby in line with the road. The offset lug concept works along the same as tsome noise cancelling headphones: A large standard lug will cause the noise at a given level as a musical note ; a smaller lug will produce the same musical note except one octive higher, or possibly in 'tune' as part of a chord, making the tire hum in a pleasing fashion (2, 3, 4 part harmony) Consider this, mon compadres, if you knew EXACTLY what each lug height will resonate at certain speed spectrums, you could use the same computer data that you've gathered as a tire manufacturer to to find out exactly where the different lug heights will actually cancel each other out. There is only one flaw to this technology: As the lugs wear down, the carefull balance of the sum parts break down to sheit. My tires have 50% life left. I think what caused the very tight audio spectrum to be heard as a whistle is this: The tires produce noise at all times. At low speed, the tires are sub sonic (inaudible). At high speed (beyond 36 mph) the tire's noise is masked by background noise (again inaudible, possibly beyond hearing levels as ultrasonic). At 36 mph, the worn down lugs have produced a whistle that probably would never have been noticed by the original buyers of the tires when they were new. Needless to say, personal noise dampening tech must never be used in urban driving situations due to extreme safety concerns. In an off-road situation, my friends, I won't even go there... Be well Fred

Me thinks your right. I ran the tires at 40 psi as my wife was bouncing off the roof (oops, sorry sweetie, wardrobe malfunction...), same whistle, same channel. I carry nothing on top, side or front other than deflectors as I drive my truck to work and back 5 to 6 days a week 60 klicks a day. (deflectors were an afterthought after the fact.) Btw: tire pressure means nothing, same whistle back to 32psi. The sound goes down a half octive if I brake hard...must be the drive train, me thinks (...I wish I would have skipped French 102, Physics 1505.6, Seduction 304 and had the chance to get greasy and funky with Automech 101 and not bother you dudes with this trivial sheit.) Hmm, now what part? Noise seems to be central. No noise bounce back off the Freeway Meridian, only a slight knocking noise under load... To be honest, folks, can we just chalk it up to Truck 'individuality'... Ya, dat's it! The truck works great, The Leather seats heat up when I ass is froze, and my wife's headaches have stopped since I lowered the tire pressure. "What do I want for Christmas, sweetie? Awww, you too nice. Me want Rancho 9000 adjustables (and remember we get the DElux gauges and air compressor package from some speed shop for FREE in the middle of nowhere." "Honey, what about the whistle in the drive-train????" Merry Christmas, and to all a good night

Thanks 88! Great advice. My dear and suffering wife and I run on the 3 season weekends into the bush in British Columbia, Canada Gold hunting. A lot of the deactivated logging roads that we end up in has cross ditches and brush that hasn't seen traffic in years. In other words, we end up being the Weedonators as Evergreen branches scratch the finish on the truck. I think that an ARB bumper (or a Brush Guard) would be great yet it doesn't trim the waskaly branches that will simply coil up energy as we brush them aside and have them whip back on the fenders. (and I will be DAMNED to take a chain saw out there to trim the friggin scenery! I remember a Jeep web site somewhere for heavy duty self adhesive vinyl clear sheeting that can be attached to the front of the truck. I don't know if I want to basically shrink wrap the front of the truck, yet it may be the answer. (Hmm, the same type of wrapping is used by Transit vehicles for large scale murals)....HEY wanna 'upgrade' your fine truck in camo, 88? (or any other images?) BC pin stripping seems to be a fact of life here...and with a brush guard there may the possibilty that the Crack heads on the byways of Vancouver may choose a different intersection than the one we're crossing (wishing) Fred

Got yer attention? (How cheap and tawdry) I have a really weird whistling noise kick in @ 58 kph (36 mph). It leaves at 60kph. The truck is a 95 WD21 TrailBoss Package with 31 Inch Avon Rangers A-Ts at 32 psi without lift. Everything works as is should. Vehicle has 200K Klicks. Truck is stock other than an 18k load auto tranny cooler and Tranny flush (recently installed) and a K&N air filter. The truck has had diff fluids changed and checked to the nuts by 2 service centers, engine checked, oil flushed and changed and bearings deemed as OK. The shocks are 'Electro' originals yet need a Rancho 5000 upgrade. Coils could need replacement (oversensitive on bumps and bottoms out too quickly). 4 wheel drive has a slight whine but nothing to fret over. The Avons are made by Cooper and tougher than nails. They supply the stock 'tyres' for Landrovers. They give a sweet ride at 32psi onroad and average bite on rock and mud. However, these 'tyres' are noisy on road above 100kph, yet (might be wrong here), I doubt that the whistle is from the wheels. These tires, however, do not have the offset height lugs that is supposed to noise inhibit. Anybody else whistling Dixie while cruising over the rainbow?? Fred

Thanks for your report SC. I gave the dude who wrote the ad a call last night. 'Language difficulties,' it seems, may have misidentified the 'Bumper' as a wrap around Brush guard from his non-working 87. I asked him if the guard was frame mounted. He said it was. As far as I know most Brush guards are mounted to the bumper with 2 square holes made by a Dremel. If this unit is frame mounted I realize that there may be another issue that may need to be addressed: The frame mount bracket on the passenger side of my 95 WD21 has been badly bent upwards into the towing hook by a previous owner's contact with Terra Firma. I figure by removing the hook and heating up the bracket, a good Fab Shop should be able to straighten the piece back to vertical? Am I right here? Here is my next question: If this unit is frame mounted, I can see two possible contact points with the truck. Without a 3rd or 4th attachment point, I would risk severe damage to the front end (read: grille, rad, tranny cooler)if I hit anything larger than a Gopher trying to do the 'Chicken-crossed-da-road' routine. Ya, I wished that this unit would replace the chrome bumper, yet I need protection up front. If nothing more than to have the crack head, jaywalking pedestrians in Vancouver, BC hopefully bounce off the front of truck. (Sheesh, Green Metal Flake costs a fortune to repair). Anyhoo, I'm seeing the dude tomorrow and check out his goods. I'll keep ya posted. For any West Coast Canadian Pathy owners, this truck I'm seeing tommorrow, (I have been told), is an 87 with a transplanted 95 engine that got the wrong people working at the wrong time to turn it into junker (err... parts donor vehicle) Fred

Thanks everybody for the input, My 95 is a WD21.