Methfinder

No worries, a little more work is all, and ever since deciding to go with the heavier material, I decided those stock roofrack channels wouldn't be strong enough. The bolts going through the roof are relatively large, and should be pretty strong in comparison to those tiny 6mm bolts.

So something to be aware of when deciding to bolt your roofrack directly to the roof instead of using the tiny 6mm machine cap screws. There are unwelded nuts as anchor points that will fall off into the roof liner when you remove the stock rack isolation pads, so doing this job requires removing the roof liner to get to those nuts. Also those isolation, or mounting pads, are formed to the holes into the roof, and are the only thing keeping water out. I plan on re-using these mounting pads, so I will bolt my brackets directly to them, possibly with longer bolts.

I only weld galvanized outside, even then, I hold my breath. Nasty stuff. Grinding a couple inches off with a sand flapper helps tremendously. My welds on this stuff using my 140 Lincoln are actually pretty good, nice and smooth. Not too much popping, I just don't have a good power supply in my garage, I keep popping breakers. Yes, the stock rails are coming off. I'm bolting directly to the mounting pads on the roof.

This should do the trick. Puts the weight right where I want it. I'll have six of these that I can bolt into the stock rail attachment points.

Haven't decided yet. I have a finger brake on my hydraulic press, so I'll probably bend some 1/4" sheet metal brackets and use the stock mounting locations for the roof rails. I made the bottom rail for the rack sit directly over the stock roof rails so that whatever mounts I use will place the weight directly down onto the stock mounting locations. Open for ideas for the mounts though. Not a whole lot of info out there on this.

Went ahead and redrew my frame using 1-1/4" schedule 40, 1.40" wall pipe, Should be plenty strong, and I can tie it in with an exoskeleton if I so choose. I set up the drawing so it would be easy to make changes in the tube/pipe size, and also change any dimensions such as bend radius, height, width, etc. Now the whole thing is set up to be bent with my 5.5" radius die on the new bender.

One crappy job and about a year later, I might actually get to continue this project. The 1" conduit main hoop for my roof rack is still decorating the wall on the side of my garage, but I'm changing the game up a bit and ditching the home depot bender. I invested some time and money into a new JD2 model 32 bender, bought a 1.75" 5.5 centerline radius die, converted it over to air over hydraulic controls, and built a cool little stand for it. Not too shabby. This machine is intended for light production work within my personal business, so the pathfinder project is still for practice. For the pathfinder projects, I'll now be using 1-1/4" schedule 40 pipe, which is 1.660 inch O.D., a 1.380 inch I.D., and a 0.140 inch wall thickness. It crushes slightly more than 1.75" DOM, but at $12 for 10 feet, it will have to do. I did a test bend with it, and it looked great! I'll be using this material to build the rack and front/rear bumpers for now.

Dually noted on the gas fumes. I've welded this stuff together quite a bit actually, and I either do it outside or turn on a fan and point it outside, or hold my breath The floor of the roof rack will also have a bunch more cross bracing, just haven't decided whether I want to use small diameter round bar, or steel mesh. The reason for the dumbed down drawing is that I can easily change the sketch above to any size I want, since I also plan on making a roof rack for a RZR that will be a lot smaller.

Did you use pipe or tube? What size? I'm doing a few projects with a 1" conduit bender and 1" emt. It's hard enough to bend regular 1" emt, I imagine rigid 1" would be a nightmare with a manual bender? You might know better than me. What bender are you using? I also have the JD2 model 32 with a 1.75"- 5.5" center line radius die for bending heavy duty DOM tubing. I'll be doing a bumper with 1-1/4" rigid tube on the JD2 to practice bending before wasting money on expensive DOM tubing. I might follow my fenders with the expensive stuff, connecting them to rock sliders, that I have to make first.

So I have the design all made up for my custom roof rack on my 2000 R50 Nissan Pathfinder. It's going to be 6 feet long by 40 inches wide, about 5-6 inches tall, and have a 60 degree wind brake, or a light bar on the front. This is a super cheap project that I'm doing to practice bending tube, well pipe in this case. I'm using the same techniques that I would be using to build a bumper or a full cage, making bend gauges and basing my project off of actual blueprints. Even though I'm using cheap materials, I figure they're suitable for a roof rack, and this is just a practice project after all. I'll post pictures as I go along, or you can follow my unfinished blog if you want: http://captain4x4builds.weebly.com/ If it turns out looking good, I might even sell it, so let me know if you're interested. I don't actually need it, so if I want your money more than my roof rack, you may be able to persuade me What I'm using: -1" conduit bender from Home Depot with a 7" centerline radius -1" regular (not rigid) emt conduit -140 amp Lincoln mig welder with flux core (no gas) -Grinder with grinder wheel and cut-off wheel -Compact Harbor Freight Bender (for flat bar mounting brackets) -Black Automotive Enamel or wrinkle black spray paint -A drill and a sanding wheel. Let me know what you guys think.

If your mounting holes are accurate, I would like to take this design and tube it out using inventor and autocad. That leads me to ask, is this file something I can open in autocad? If nothing else, having some accurate dimensions would help if you care to share I finally decided, after tearing both bumpers off multiple times, that I need metal bumpers.

So I understand the bleeding procedure, which in my mind would be RR, LR, RF, LF, so that you are starting farthest from the master cylinder and working your way closer, but the factory manual I downloaded says LR, RR, LF, RF.

You guys want to hear horror stories? I'm full of them. Funny, because this is also related to brakes, at least part of it. So I pack up a bunch of stuff to make the drive between Rexburg Idaho and Salt lake City for the weekend, including a gas can, since I usually end up needing it driving through no mans land. It was some holiday, I forget which one. I get about an hour and a half south of Rexburg, and I start smelling something burning. My first suspicions were either oil leaking onto my manifold or my brakes, except this was strong, and it was getting worse fast. I start playing with my vents because I thought that's where it was coming from, but it didn't seem to be coming from my vents. By this time I'm somewhat close to the next exit, and my eyes are starting to water, then I peek into my rearview mirror and see smoke bellowing out from behind my back seat. The exit was about an 1/8th of a mile ahead so I start hauling ass so I can pull off and check my truck before it explodes. I'm doing about 90 entering the off ramp and try to slow down, just to find out I had zero brakes (this was my first affair with my E-Brake and down shifting). I pull off, run behind the truck and start throwing my stuff out the back as fast as I can, including the partially melted gas can. I wait a minute for the smoke to clear and start investigating. My carpet was all melted, right in the middle. My Ice scraper was melted/stuck to the floor. I thought my brakes caught on fire, but they seemed to be in good shape. I got under the truck and saw that my muffler had broken in half right where it curves over the rear axle, so I had hot exhaust gas shooting out the broken tail pipe, aimed directly at the cargo area floor. It got so hot that it burned the undercoating off the bottom of the truck and made my carpet boil. It was close enough to the hard brake line running along the axle that it melted the rubber coating off of it, and I'm guessing, boiled my brake fluid which temporarily left me without brakes. I desperatley needed to fix this before getting back on the interstate, but it was a holiday, and everthing was closed. I ended up digging through some HVAC companies scrap bin to find a piece of sheet metal I could cut and bend into an exaust tip that pointed down towards the road. I secured it with a hose clamp and continued on my way.

get the O-Reilly's cardone re-man. It's a genuine nissan part rebuilt by Cardone. $90 is the best you're going to find. Unless that Rock Auto part is the same one. Still, O Reilly's is way faster.

It's official. Nissan's brakes suck big time. I just finished chasing down the problems (plural) on mine, all of which decided to happen at the same time. Ironically, as much as I thrash on my poor Pathy, I don't think I caused these problems. My older brother had almost all the same issues with his maxima, so I'm probably not done replacing things yet. First thing I noticed was my brake light and spongy pedal. I checked all over for leaks, and I never could find one. So I just kept on adding brake fluid wondering where it was going, that is, until I finally noticed brake fluid spraying out that expensive proportioning valve attached to my back axle. Visibly, it seemed to be spraying directly from one of the hard lines, so I removed the line, cut and re-flared it. No luck. I mentioned the proportioning valve is expensive, right? After tons of research, and very minimal availability of this impossible to find part, I find the oil spraying out a little black rubber plug directly above the steel line. Most likely just an internal o-ring for the the valve. Of course it's not repairable, I just have to nut up and spend nearly $300 to replace it. I got that taken care of, went to go bleed the brakes and end my nightmare, just to see brake fluid dripping from the booster. Now to replace yet another expensive part, the master cylinder. OEM $230. I found a Cardone re-man from O-Reilly's for $90. Still, that sucks. After fixing all leaks, I try to bleed the brakes, still spongy. Not wanting to crawl under the truck again, I take it to a brake shop. They bleed it again, adjust the rear shoes, and adjust the brake pedal. It felt great!, until I got 3 blocks away and the brakes started locking up. I limped back to the brake shop and parked it. By the time they came back out to fix it again, the brakes were completely seized, the truck would not move! They adjusted the pedal again and made the brakes work about as good as they possible can. The pedal is a little soft, I can still occasionally smell my brakes burning from dragging, and I don't think they got all the air out either. Still better than before!, as in, they work the first time I press them. The brake guy almost drove through their garage door. I forgot to tell him to pump the brakes rapidly and use the E-brake to stop, what a joke.

Still love them. I just added the reservoir and softened up the ride a bit. It soaks up the hard stuff way easier now.

Ok, So I found out what it was. I was right about the pivot bolt, it was just really hard to see.(a long 14 mm bolt that the power steering pump swings around.) I loosened the pivot bolt holding the water pump in place, used my hammer to pry it up a bit while I re-tightened the pivot bolt. I did this while the locking nut and tensioner screw were also loose. Then I re-tensioned, and locked it down. Now I can steer to full lock without that awful squeal. I think the power steering pump slowly fell, since the only thing holding it in place was that 14 mm pivot bolt. If everything is loose, the whole thing just swings down. It makes sense, most of the time I'm hammering this thing to death on some dirt road, occasionally catching air. lol. after a while, something is bound to rattle loose or just fall off. (like my exhaust system. Little by little, I see less and less of it.)

My power steering belt squeals when I turn the wheel. I just replaced the belts, and I don't want to replace the power steering belt again, it's hard to get to. Anyway, I know the belt is still good, but I have the tensioner maxed out and I still can't get it to tighten all the way. What's the proper way to adjust the power steering belt? I know there are at least two parts to loosening/tightening: the tensioner itself and a lock, but is there a pivot bolt I have to loosen? Your guys help would be much appreciated, I want to go wheeling, but this is going to destroy the belt if it keeps slipping, and like I said before, I don't want to take it off (I don't have the tools to get the drive pulley off where I am right now.) Forgot to mention that it's a 1999.5

I will eventually put ARB lockers in, front and rear. But I figure it won't hurt to try the cutting brake system first. After all, once I buy the lockers, I will still have cutting brakes for their intended purpose, and cutting brakes are just cool. so cutting brakes, front locker, then rear locker in that order. Then I can post videos comparing the three separately. I can't seem to find videos like that anywhere. FYI, emphasis on "eventually". I am broke right now, so this is going to take me a while.

I don't know. I think it would be better than the foot brake trick since i would only be locking up one wheel, instead of all 4. I've been using that trick a lot lately, and it only seems to help a little, if at all. Most of the time I have to back down and get another run at it.

That's a pretty cool idea. If done right, it could be a slick way to make good use of the parking brake, and no extra levers! It would be even better to make the side to side motion work with hydraulics, and the up and down motion mechanical for the parking brake. I believe that would require some extensive work though. If I do this, I think i'm going to go the easy way and setup the cutting brake with a separate lever. I just have to figure out where to put the dumb thing so I don't accidentally hit it going down the interstate.

I've been looking around for a page that will show me very detailed info about my pathfinder. i.e. Do I have a traction control system, LSD, torque, hp, everything. i'm not even 100% positive i drive an XE.

Krypton fabrication makes a 4" Sub-frame drop. It comes with longer steering parts and 4" blocks for the sub-frame. I am using that in combination with gas struts. If you go this route, check out my build thread. I have all the detailes that went into installing it. Also, a guy from Chile named ramdala installed it with the strut spacers they recommend. He did a good write up. I kinda followed his to get started

So far, I'm the only one running ORI's. Peoples eyes popped out of their heads when I told them how much the cost. I hacked up my stock struts and used the spindle mount and the upper mount to custom fit the ORI's. The idea I used should work for other similiar types of shocks that have hemispherical mounting bearings top and bottom. This idea at least makes it possible to use other products out there that wern't specifically designed as pathfinder struts. Although, it requires extensive fab work.