GoPathyGo

I believe folks have tried this and found it difficult... Try the NICO forums for more info. Fueler and tekazgtr seem to have a lot of experience with this. I'm changing it by replacing the radio altogether! Hehehe.... I love music and got really fed up of the stock system after 3 weeks... Sorry, wish I had a better answer...

This seems to be a hit or miss thing. My needles were a translucent orange, so their default color should be red/orange unless there's some totally radical color back there. I used red LEDs so it was kinda easy. I've seen pics of folks with blue leds and the needles stayed red - it looked pretty cool (see link above).

Thanks. Not sure if the dash bulbs are the same as the gauge cluster ones. You may want to check out the original thread and do a search for the NICO forums thread. See link below for the NICO Forums thread I used. Also, you may want to try emailing AutoLumination.com, which is the shop I got my bulbs from. http://forums.nicoclub.com/zerothread?id=369390 I think the bulbs should be the same as in my 2000. These are standard parts - in fact, a bunch of other companies use them, too. Your layout may be slightly different but it shouldn't be very difficult to figure out.

This looked pretty cool and I thought my stock lights were pretty darn dim anyway. So, since I'm sitting around doing nothing waiting for all my suspension pieces+skids to arrive and since I wanted to actually get a bit more involved, I figured I'd try this. Boy, did I get more involved! Heh! Keep in mind I've never worked on a Pathfinder before, so I probably made a bunch of mistakes. Actually, I haven't worked on a car in years. Became sissified while working for THE MAN (whoever that may be) in Corporate America. So here we go... Since I was working on something after a loooonnggg time and since it was my first go at the Pathfinder, I was cautious and disconnected the battery. Using the very helpful instructions here and at NICO forums, I pulled the gauge cluster out. Unfortunately, it was a bit stiffer than I wanted. And LEDs kept falling into the darn steering column! Thanks to the wiring, space is pretty tight unless you have tiny hands and a tiny head with a neck that can flex 180 degrees like a slinky... After about the 100th time an LED fell into the steering column ( ), I decided to take drastic measures. Trim piece after trim piece came off till eventually I had pulled apart pretty much all the plastic in the dash area Things got waaayyy easier after this. It was also kinda neat to see everything laid out. All very straightforward and simple. Turns out my '03 has 6 accessible bulbs. 3 up top with brown bases for the fullbeam light and the blinkers. 3 with black bases distributed at pretty much the corners of the gauge cluster. These black bases are, in my Pathfinder, the gauge and odo illumination. 2 up top illuminate the gauges and the 3rd, in the middle lower part of the cluster illuminates the odo. This explains why I thought everything was so dim. In essence, only 2 bulbs are illuminating the bulk of the area you look at! Doh! I will call the black bases the "Gauge Lights" from now on. (BTW, the gauge cluster comes apart pretty easily. All snap-locks so you can literally pop the whole thing apart. This is a great time to change the gauge color scheme using something like MIMO's kits, clear out dust, paint the needles hot pink, spray paint "I was here" on the plastic or whatever.) Taking the bulbs out is very easy. Just twist 'em and they should fall right out. You shouldn't need to use much force. They can be difficult to reach so I used a set of nose pliers to turn and pull 'em. Now for the weird part. The brown bases separated from their bulbs very easily. The black bases were practically cemented to their bulbs - someone else commented on this. This becomes important later. After a lot of messing around, I eventually put the AutoLumination LEDs in Autolumination Bases and put the OEM Toshiba Gauge Lights aside. The Autolumination bases were a HUGE pain to get in, BTW. Again, this becomes important later. Pic below shows Autolumination base "installed". So, 2 hours later, I am one happy camper. Switch off the lights, reconnect the battery, hop into my shiny Pathfinder, crank 'er up and.... Nothing. The gauge cluster is totally dark. AGH! I'd read about someone having their cluster go up in smoke. So I waited and watched. No smoke but no lights either. After a few head-scratching minutes, I decided to swap the bases. This was easier said than done. The bulbs refused to come out of the black bases. Eventually, I came up with a hybrid solution. I swapped the high beam bulb (brown base) for an LED and replaced one of the Gauge Lights with it. Reconnect battery and - success! So we now know the problem with my Pathfinder. The bases aren't compatible. I tried to separate the black bases from the bulbs again. 2 promptly shattered. I was able to reuse one by, no jokes, pulling with steady but not extreme force on the FILAMENT till the bulb popped out. Weird, huh ? That didn't work for the other 2 bulbs. So, eventually, I used the high beam assembly with an LED at one corner, a black base with an LED in another and the remaining working black base for the Odo light. Put everything back together (2nd time around took barely 20 mins). Reconnected battery, said a quick prayer and... Ta-da! So, my takeaways: 1. For my '03, only 2 bulbs are responsible for illuminating the key parts I look at. I like the red LED look but it's too dim for my taste. Gonna get more powerful LEDs 2. The Autolumination bases don't work for my Pathfinder. I will have to buy a few OEM assemblies and plug em in for blinkers and high beams. The blinker and high beam assemblies will then get higher power LEDs and be swapped in. Alternatively, I may try to strip the bulbs from the OEM assemblies using my highly sophisticated "filament pull" method. 3. This is actually a pretty easy and straightforward mod once you figure it out. Shouldn't take more than 30-40 mins tops. As with so many mods and things in life, if you're having to use way too much force, something isn't right. Most of these things snap in and out. 4. Working on this Pathfinder is going to be fun! Of course, all of this only applies to my specific car and experience. Your results may vary.

Honestly, I don't think you guys need to justify that mod or defend yourselves. It was cheap, freaking cool and sounds like a great experience. Awesome work!

Re: amount of stuff. Here are a couple of pics of my survival pack. It contains everything in my list above, including a couple of items I probably wouldn't actually leave in the pack. E.g., 4 parachute flares, which are the single heaviest item and which I'd probably use 1 or 2 of before heading out. I keep it secured in the middle of my Pathfinder, so that in case God forbid I'm rear-ended or back into something I don't get a flare up my you-know-what. For reference, the tire in the pic is just over 30". Pack weighs about 25 lbs, would be a bit lighter in an actual situation. Does not include tent, which is a separate item.

Yeah, thanks. Just don't know how much clearance/space will be left once the rear tire is mounted and not sure about the weight issues. Kinda want to see the winch installed before putting that on. Advantage of a custom fab would be I could have it set up so it was high enough and there was plenty of room and everything was clear and clean. But you're right, if, once installed, the winch isn't an issue then the KMA thing may be the way to go. (Off the shelf part. I'm very good at kicking and screaming when things don't work so may be able to get a refund or replacement if I don't like the quality. )

Thanks guys. The tip on the KMA piece is very helpful. The only issue with using the trail hitch is that I may put the winch back there. The winch'll help balance the weight and level the car a bit if I have the same issues with the lift kits that others here have had... I'm gonna put the winch on a bit later. Good point on the goo stuff. I have shredded tires in the past. Not pleasant! That's actually exactly why I like having the tire in an easily-accessible place. Sounds like either front-mounting the winch or getting a custom piece fabbed is the way to go. Vengeful, could you PM me a few shops please ? - GPG, who is getting more and more irritable at all his suspension pieces not being here yet!!!

Ok, so this may be a dumb question. Couldn't find the type of answer I was looking for using the search. While certain aspects of the question have been addressed earlier, I haven't seen the whole thing put together in a thread... I'm not a big fan of the spare location on my R50. Departure angle, weight (specially when I upsize the spare to match the others), not easy to access on trail, sitting in perfect spot to be beaten up by brush and rocks etc etc. I'd like to skip the roof rack solution if I can. It'd end up raising the center of gravity, which won't be great with the tall & skinny-ish offroad-biased tires I plan to eventually put on(maybe 235/85 or 245/75 on 16s). This is now my only car, so it has to pull double-duty. I believe the useful and cool tailgate rack is basically out. I saw a thread talking about Kennesaw Mountain's multi-carrier but it wasn't clear to me if that thing could be bolted onto R50s that came without the factory tail carrier offered briefly in the late 90s. The Pezzy custom bumper and carrier is out since I'd probably end up blowtorching a giant hole in my hand. Vengeful had a guy who then disappeared. SOOOO.... That leaves the roof rack, inside the car (eats space and weighs rear) or some sort of hybrid tire seal approach (aka no spare). I looked at UltraSeal (which was developed to help Army vehicles survive bullet wounds on the battlefield) and Ride-On. Was also thinking about some combination of that and an off-the-shelf offroad-oriented tire repair kit such as SafetySeal. http://www.ultraseal.com/Pages/prodInfoPages/prodInf.html http://www.gemplers.com/product/G65511/Ult...lletproof-Grade http://www.ride-on.com/ http://www.safetyseal.com/ This would also save on the cost of an extra wheel and spare. Thoughts ? *Prepares to duck the "Doofus! Always have a spare!" comments*

Wow! Impressive.

My $0.02: I make my decision depending on the type of trail and activity. If it's light, easy and popular with plenty of daylight left, I go with as little as 1 or no passengers. Chances of getting stuck are low and if you do get stuck, someone will be along or you can call/hike for help. At the other end of the spectrum, if it's difficult and you've never been on it before, you'd want at least 1 passenger and really you'd want another rig with a winch. Also depends on the end-goal. If I'm out doing photography or just getting away from it all, I prefer to go alone. But if it's for fun, well, the more the merrier! Dunno about wife and kids. Don't have any. Well, none that I'm aware of. (Hey, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!) Just kidding. Don't forget - having passengers means you can easily take pics and clips! Trails come and go, pics of conquering your own private Moab are forever!

If anyone has something like the NPORA www.nissanpathfinders.net sticker in white, I'd take a couple and put them on once the mods are complete. I seriously doubt many Nissan/Pathfinder/SUV owners in this Lexus/BMW/Mercedes paradise are even aware of either this group or a Pathfinder's capabilities.

My kind of state! Here in DC they inspect everything - emissions, emergency braking, lights, turn signals blah blah. It's just a giant revenue scam, I had my Pathfinder inspected before the mods and got one valid for 2 years. Around here, they tend to care most about emissions and that your lights are visible. As far as insurance, you can play the same numbers game they do. Basically, what are the odds of your car being stolen or you totaling your car ? (Someone else totals it, they pay so you're indifferent.) Weigh the value of the car (with mods) against the probability of theft/totaling and compare that to the insurance premium. You can tilt the probability in your favor. E.g., if you live in an area with high crime or are worried about parts being stolen, it may be worth spending $300 on a premium alarm to protect $5k of mods on a $10k car. There are now ones for < $200 that will even call your cell phone if the alarm goes off and allow you to disable the car via your cellphone. As far risk of your totaling it - well, you control that more than anyone else so you have to figure whether it's worth it to pay up for a freak accident. For example, in my case, I weighed Pathy cost ($13k before tax) + Mods (still in denial on that bill), adjusted for the fact that I live in a low-crime part of DC (yes, such things exist, thank God) and no longer drive like a maniac on the road. (Growing old *sigh*) I decided to increase the odds by trying out one of these cell-phone alarm things. I also figured that if I *do* roll the car offroad, insurance may pay but then goodbye getting insurance again at anything approaching reasonable rates. So I dumped my collision and reduced my comprehensive to almost nothing. (Car < $20k if stolen.) That cut my bill more than half. I now pay $500/year for sick (hundreds of thousands) amounts of liability coverage. God forbid I hit something or someone. If I do, any reasonable amount will be covered by insurance. Sorry if that was wordy. Hope it helps. - GPG.

Google. Best answers, tons of info, relatively easy to navigate and, most of all, chilled out people. Made it all very different and a bit more mature than many brands' boards. Hope the board survives and expands. If not, my guess is it'll be because few people really know about Pathfinders, not because of anything folks here have done. I was just under my Pathy and was very impressed by how clean, straightforward and well-laid out it is. Admittedly, it's been babied but I've seen a lot younger trucks in much worse condition...

Stickers and cards would be cool, IMHO. Here are a couple of places I've used. Reasonable pricing, high quality and very fast. I think Vista right now has a Free Business Card promo but to use that you have to go with their patterns, some of which are kinda cheesy. www.cafepress.com www.vistaprint.com There are also a bunch of places online that'll do custom decals and stickers. Just ask "google". :-) I also got a couple of nifty stickers/decals off an ebay member called CNC Vinyl Graphics. Neat stuff. Thanks, J.

For sure. One minor problem - $$$.

Hehehe. My slightly more positive take on the rear-mounted winch is: Dammit, I got my wheels stuck in mud. Good thing I got that rear-mounted winch, I got myself unstuck, stopped being a moron and found another way up/forward that didn't involve boneheadedly driving headlong into a mess. I tend to think the most important thing to engage on a trail are the mental gears. I try to avoid needing a winch in the first place and the rear winch is for those situations where I haven't or couldn't estimate/check out depth and terrain properly - or was being a dumbass macho schmuck for the exact 10 minutes that I shouldn't have been. Keep the opinions coming folks. All helpful. The winch is on order and install won't be for at least a week, so I have time to change things up.

If I'm ass down in the mud, to use the highly technical "ass down" term , I can hopefully use the truck itself as a giant winch assuming I still have steering and some kind of front wheel traction. If I'm face first in mud, very hard to back out...

Hi all, Didn't see this elsewhere when I ran a search so figured I'd ask. Just got a deal on a Warn 9k Winch ($650 at the Warn website). I was planning to install it at the rear. Local truck guy doesn't think that should be a problem. Has anyone else tried this ? Any reason I *shouldn't* install it at the rear ? I prefer rear winches in general because it allows me to pull the truck out of trouble whereas if I'm face down in mud (a stupid situation, admittedly), the winch can't do anything... Also, leaves the front free and doesn't require a winch-compatible brush bar. (The ARB/TJM bars too much for me....) Thanks, J.

Can't speak for the others but a lot of my items are pretty light and small or fold flat. Got 'em from army surplus and survival stores, which put a premium on portability. I pack pretty much everything into a backpack and leave it in the back. That also allows me to abandon the truck and head for the nearest station in case, God forbid, it becomes necessary to use the pack.

BTW, when I say you only need 2 of the marine flares, that applies under specific situations. In my case, given I have communications gear, standard flares and so on, the marine flares are backups and I think that for me 2 is enough to give a rescue party time to see me. My pack has 4. The quantity you need will totally depend on your situation. Also, the marine flares typically burn for up to 40 seconds. Meant to write "up to 1000' and more than a few seconds".

I tend to be prepared for pretty much anything, which is kinda ridiculous given I live near a massive metropolitan area. But I figure if I'm trapped in bad weather on a hill in WV, I better have everything I need for 1-2 days on my own till I'm rescued or a hillbilly hits me on the head with a banjo. All of these can be procured online for $5-$20 each except for the EMT kit (which was so expensive I blotted it out of my mind), the wind'n'go light/radio/cellphone charger ($40), the marine flares (you really only need 2 of these) and the axe (which was a mistake since you can get the same axe at Home Depot pretty darn cheap). Light sticks - 12 Hour Regular & 30-min High Intensity Marine parachute flares (Go up to 1000' high and burn for up to a few mins. Useful if there's a lot of tree cover; walk to the nearest patch of open sky and let em off. But for God's sake do NOT shoot straight up into the trees! ) Reflective safety vest Regular flare gun kit Colored triangle safety markers Emergency reflective sleeping bag Large body warmer and heat pads for sleeping bag 24-hour hand and body heat pads Heatsheet 2-person survival blanket Pocket saw First Responder EMT medical kit + snake bite and wound closure kits Backpackers Axe $15 multi-tool, similar to a swiss army knife Emergency camo tent (depends on where exactly I'm going) Wind'n'go battery-less light, AM/FM/NOAA radio and cellphone charger Push Button Air Horn (for bears, wolves or other hungry things) Triple teargas/pepper spray (the District doesn't like guns) MREs 100' parachute chord Strike anywhere wood matches and a partridge in a pear tree... Hope this helps.