Simon

I will be doing that very same modification in 2 weeks. I'll post pics of the process, and the finished product after that. I have a friend who works in metal fabrication that's going to be helping me do it. He's done a couple of bumper relocations on Xterra's with aftermarket winch bumpers, so it should be fairly straightforward.

That surprises me. My boots rip, my ball joints fail shortly thereafter. I went through it for 2 years, and about 3 ball joints per side......

That's a good point.....I hadn't thought of that before, but what you're saying makes sense.

CT will have lucas power steering additive. That's where I've bought Lucas products in the past.

Nope....just call, and only order the UCA's. They're about $160USD shipped. Ryan.... The issue with the balljoint is not that it will travel past where they were engineered to go, the issue is that they sit at one extreme of their travel, the entire time. That not only puts stress on the ball joint itself, as it was designed to be straight, and only venture to it's extremes with suspension travel. THe other thing is, that the boots on them will wear out faster, as one side is completely squished, and the other extended. As you know, when the boot rips, the ball joints fail shortly thereafter. Another thing to consider....with the age of our trucks.....I'd say it's more than possible that things move differently (read: more; further) than they did initially from the factory. Bump stops wear down, get squished. It may only be a small amount of difference, but if the ball joint is already sitting in at an extreme angle, this could be an issue.

Uh....Ryan....You're wrong, at least, with some aftermarket UCA's you are. AC's UCA's do nothing, it seems. However, Roughcountry (Superlift) and Calmini UCA's both allow the ball joint to sit at a much more vertical level, when the T-bars are cranked, as compared to stock arms. Believe me on that, I was running with stock UCA's and my upper ball joints sat at a very extreme angle. They're perfectly level now. If you look at a pic of the Roughcountry arms, you'll see they're bent near the balljoint mount to allow for this.

As Kn0xville said...NGK/NTK is the way to go. Similar to spark plugs, it seems Nissans are happiest with NGK/NTK. I've been running an NTK OE replacement for 4 years, and over 150,000kms.

It's the lower control arm bolts that mount to the crossmember. Tighten them up to (I believe) 108 ft-lbs. Though, if the sound is heard at full lock, it's the bump stops....grease them, and it won't make the noise.

He didn't. I did. I was told it was for a WD21, and found out, after purchasing that it was for an R50. Dan has since found an ARB for me, and he's coming up to Toronto to make the swap.

Belt and tensioner aren't expensive. It's the water pump that pushes the price of parts up.

Not a problem. Was easy enough to do myself.

I'm seeing that as well, Ryan. Seems with my 16" rims I have a lot of size options.

His CL's come with Cotter pins......the initial one did not. When I bought mine from him, I had to drill out the bolt myself. No big deal. Castle nut, and cotter pins were provided.

I have one of, I assume, Hoohaa's first Centerlinks, and I will "vouch" for it's quality. Top notch work, VERY comparable to L&.as I've seen them both up close and personal.

It's a common issue. The headlight switch contacts need to be cleaned, and bent a little so that they contact when they should, and don't when they shouldn't.

By permanent it means that the settings stays until you change it. What happens with a VQ Engine is that it will automatically advance/retard the timing depending on grade of gas. Premium gas= Timing advanced. Regular gas= timing retarded. It's so the thing doesn't knock like hell on regular gas, but gives good performance with premium.

Nope.....if it's your O2 sensor, you'll be fine, but your truck could run rough, and your mileage will suffer.

The wiring is common to fail on the MAF sensor. Mine does it sometimes, and when it's acting up, my exhaust smells as well. My idle is also erratic at that time. Typically, I just wiggle the connector, and the wiring for it, and the problem goes away.

Same for me.

Well, if you're driving a 97, you don't have a centerlink to worry about, and no upper control arms. My guess is probably a bad tie-rod end somewhere has thrown your alignment off.

It is the lifters. It's pretty common. Mine does it from time to time at startup as well. Seafoam didn't do anything. The only thing that does, is running Lucas Oil stabilizer (1/2 Litre) every oil change. That seems to keep it quiet. As long as it only does it for a second or two at startup, it's not really hurting anything though.

Depends on the situation. Flying through shallow mud like you were, you may be right. However, deeper mud, can really get in there quite well. SkinnyPedal drenched his last year on a run in Bobcaygeon, and was lucky that he didn't hydrolock. His ricer cone filter was COMPLETELY soaked. Of course, the mud/water was over his hood.

OH, the bearings will come with it. Just set the races aside. You'll have to repack them. And yeah, the dealer will carry the wheel studs. They're not too bad in terms of price.

Pull the hub off, and unbolt the wheel hub from the rotor. Then you can tap out the old studs, and install new. NOt a hard job at all, just time consuming.