SRN

Keep us updated with what you do to get it installed.

This is the first I've heard of something like this, so excuse my ignorance. But from this my understanding is that if you have a '94 or '95 Pathy you would be able to swap in the M30 ECU, an auto TPS and the M30's O2 sensor? Or with the later WD21's, all you need is the ECU? Because if this would make for better performance, that would be awesome!

It'll be getting nice and dirty down in Beef Basin! I'll post a full trip report when I get back. And yes, that Miata is a very nice one. It's a '90 and turned 17,000 original miles earlier this month. Just waiting for summer to really arrive so I can actually enjoy it since I took it out of winter storage.

Last weekend I finally had the time and weather to get underneath the Pathy and throw the parts I had on. OME springs on the rear and OME shocks on all four corners. I also got the Lego's set up with some 31x10.5 BFG AT KO's which makes the whole thing look much better. With everything its sitting about two and a half inches higher than before. I was going to throw the LSD in as well until I ran into a boneheaded oversight on my part. So the LSD gets to wait for another day. Friday I got the CB installed as well. Since I already had a Cobra 75 WX ST in the Samurai I just picked up another AC 701 box and will use the handset between both vehicles. One of the really nice things I've found about newer vehicles is there are lots of places to hid things! I installed the box in the dead space of the center console and drilled a hole in one of the blank buttons to run the connector cable. Then I ran the antenna and power cables under the console and out the firewall to the engine compartment. To the driver side of the hood I installed a PCTEL two foot whip and the whole thing looks pretty clean I think. And of course, the most important part: Stickers! Big thanks to Kurt and Cruiser Outfitters for getting the parts in for me. Apparently some of the parts had been sitting at the ARB warehouse for quite some time! Glad I could finally put them to use. I'll be heading out to Beef Basin in a few weeks to give everything a proper christening. Before then I should also have my new spare mounted and I'll be getting my Samurais' roof rack set up on the Thule rack that came with the Pathy.

What: Three day, two night camping trip Where: Beef Basin just south of Canyonlands When: June 10th - 12th (Friday - Sunday). We will be leaving from Salt Lake City the morning of Friday, June 10th and returning in the evening of Sunday June 12th. Who: Anyone who wants to go explore some amazing country with lots of indian ruins and spectacular vistas! Vehicle Requirments: Any 4wd, high clearance vehicle. This basically means any SUV that is actually truck like or an actual truck. A CB radio is highly recommended. Trail: Most of where we will be going is pretty tame, rated a 2. Bobby's Hole, SOB Hill and Elephant Hill can easily be navigated with a stock SUV and a little skill and would probably garner a 3 1/2 rating. Gear: Tent, sleeping bag and other sundries Firewood Food and some way to cook it Water, water WATER! Extra fuel Trash bags (we take out what we bring in) Camera Schedule: Friday: Plan on meeting at the Cabela’s parking lot in Lehi by 8:00am. We will then caravan the rest of the way to the trail head with stops for fuel in Wellington and Moab. We hope to make it to camp the first night by 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Around the campfire we will discuss Tread Lightly practices and basic 4WD and camping questions. Saturday: Try to get going in the morning by about 9:00am and explore around Beef Basin and Ruin Park. Some light hiking to various ruins. Pretty leisurely day focusing mostly on looking around while we make our way to the border of Canyonlands. Find camp at a reasonable time and enjoy a night under the stars and continue our discussions from the previous night. Sunday: Again, try to get going in the morning by about 9:00am and start heading into Canyonlands via Bobby's Hole and work our way through a bit of the Needles District and finally out by way of Elephant Hill. From there it's back to Salt Lake with the obligatory stop at the Moab Brewery for some Beer Cheese Soup (still eating it even though I am now lactose intolerant. Its that good!). Summary: If you've never been camping down in southeastern Utah, this is some spectacular country that you really should try to make it to. This run is easy enough that any novice with a stock vehicle should be fine. Basically, if you want to have a good time out in the backcountry, you should come along. And just to whet you whistle a bit, pictures of the area!

I live about 45 min away from RRO, so I've never had a problem. Also, dirty little secret, I worked for them long ago. I understand that they have gone way down hill since then though. They are reviled in the Suzuki community for their poor customer service. But everyone has a story, right? For your OME stuff check out Cruiser Outfitters. They are primarily a Land Cruiser place, but they are one of the largest ARB distributors in the West, so they can get anything. I ordered my OME stuff from them on a Thursday and got them the next Thursday. Outstanding customer service and competitive pricing.

The weather is driving me crazy! Nice weather during the week when I don't have much time after I get home. Then crap for the weekends. ARGH!!! I can't wait to get them on, but all the free time I've had thus far has been going into getting my Miata prepped for a cross country road trip in a few weeks, so the Pathy probably won't get anything down to it until I get back. Both good and bad I suppose.

Parts! Now I just need the weather to get better so I can get underneath the damn thing...

I've used them in the rocks of southern Utah on several occasions and never had an issue. The material they are made out of is very stout. Of course it's no perminate replacement for a good floor jack in the garage, but I'd take one of these over a precariously place bottle jack or Hi-Lift any day. As for a melted tube, I've never seen or heard of that happening. Was the cone still on the head of the tube?

Hi-lifts are a great last resort option, but I've always found them terribly dangerous when not on a completely flat, stable surface. Too many time's I've been out on a trail and had a vehicle up on a Hi-lift to swap out a flat or do a repair and you can just see that thing wobbling or you can't get it to quite lock in to the next hole. Fortunately I have never seen one actually fail, but I've heard stories. Plus, unless they are stored in a case or bag, they invariably rust up and then they get really tough to try and use. Personally, for home use I'd stick with a standard floor jack and for the trail I'd get an exhaust jack like this one: . Yeah, they aren't cheap, but you pay for what you get right? And they are awesome.

I am beginning to outfit my Pathfinder for some backcountry exploring and with the addition of more communication equipment, off road lights, and generally piece of mind I'd like to set up dual batteries in it. I've done a search for dual battery setups and found some rather old posts covering it so I'm wondering if anyone has more current information. I'm particularly interested in seeing how someone has done a dual setup side by side under the hood. It looks like it could work if you moved the power steering reservoir. Has anyone done this?

You can buy t-shirts here that say that.

Yeah, I usually make the junkyard rounds. Tear A Part, Pull and Save, Pick N Pull. Haven't seen any legos out there recently though.

Yep, found them on KSL. I'd like to find one more to put on the spare. I fear I'll pay just as much for one as I did for all fou of these though. Oh well. They are in great shape, now I just need some tires to put on them.

Picked up some Lego's today: $30 for the set. Can't beat that!

So my understanding is that the 300ZX one is the "best" due to its breakaway point. But would the lower breakaway be better with winter street driving? My Pathy will see quite a bit of dirt, but probably not much terribly difficult terrain. I'm currently sourcing a factory rear LSD and my thought was having one up front would help offset the fact that I wouldn't have a full locker in the rear. Perhaps I'm over stressing it because I've had a locker in the rear of my Samurai for the last 12 years and have a hard time imagining going anywhere without one.

As well as Suzuki, Mitsubishi and Isuzu. I was just checking because I have a connection for AISIN parts.

I'm interested in getting a front Limited Slip to complement the rear. I have searched here as well as other sites and not found much. I have found two interesting bits of information that I was hoping could be extrapolated on. First, apparently in Australia WD21's had a front LSD option. Has anyone tried to bring one of these diffs into the states? Second, I read that someone got an ARB designed for the rear diff in a KA24 powered D21 working in the front of a VG30 powered WD21. Does this suggest that an OEM LSD from such a truck might be able to work as well? Finally, after market options. I don't see any, am I missing one somewhere?

Does anyone know if the OEM manual hubs are made by AISIN?

The Spiral Jetty has been called one of the most important American sculptures of the 20th century. Built by Robert Smithson in 1970 out of mud and basalt rocks it spent the majority of its life submerged in the waters of the Great Salt Lake, but over the past decade the waters of the lake have remained low enough that the Jetty has been visible and walk able again. I had been to the Spiral Jetty twice before, most notably for the 2009 Relic Run, but was looking for a quick, fun first outing to take our new Pathfinder on. So Tomi, two friends and myself loaded it up and headed out. Our first stop was the Golden Spike National Historic Site. For some reason I had assumed that since it was a Sunday, it would be closed. Fortunately since it is a Federal site, not a state one, this is not the case. So we got to wander the small museum and the actual Joining of the Rails. Golden Spike always inspires a certain amount of awe in me at the level of engineering and personal sacrifice that was required to build the first transcontinental railroad. Plus, its just fun to see how far you can walk along the rails before you fall! After Golden Spike we quickly hit the dirt road that heads out to Rozel Point and the Spiral Jetty. I have to say going from the Samurai to the Pathfinder is night and day. Sixty miles per hour on a rutted dirt road was smooth as silk, a far cry from the rattling, jarring Samurai. Just to the east of our final destination is the site of some old oil works. Under the Great Salt Lake is actually a vast amount of oil. Unfortunately it is very young, tar like oil so it is rather difficult extract. Over the years there have been many attempts to make oil drilling on the lake a profitable enterprise and this location is one of these endeavors. The remains here consist of lots of wooden pilings that once held the rigs and piping, rusted out pipes, cables and even some oil barrels that had sunk in the lake when the water was high. An absolutely fascinating place to climb around and see what you can find, you’ll even come up on some seeping oil, just don’t step in it unless you want to lose your shoe. I’d venture to say that the oil works are more interesting than the Spiral Jetty. Perhaps that’s just me, but they are worth the drive alone and the Spiral Jetty is just a bonus. Some people are concerned that there may be a return of drilling to the area with the increase in oil prices. Interestingly, I understand that Smithson chose this location for the Spiral Jetty because of the oil drilling going on. It was easier to get heavy equipment out there to dump the rocks due to the service road. I guess the return of drilling would place the Jetty to the correct context again. After climbing around the oil works for about an hour we made our way the last half mile or so to the Spiral Jetty. From the road you can look down and see the Jetty and appreciate the art of it. It is an interesting sculpture as it juts 1500 feet out into what was the lake but is now just a mud flat and, well, spirals to the left. Every time I’ve come out here I wonder what people will think about this centuries in the future. Will this be like Stonehenge (which really isn’t a henge at all, but that’s semantics) where they wonder what its relevance was? Will they realize that it was just some guys’ crazy idea for a piece of art? Who knows. The previous times I was out here the place was desolate except for our party. This time because of all the news articles about the Jetty and the exhibit at the Utah Museum of Fine Art there where about 20 people there, which made it seem crowded. From the road you have to climb down a rocky hill to get to the Jetty itself. It’s much easier to walk on the mud flats than the actual Jetty, but what’s the fun in that, right? On the farthest edge where the shallow waters of the lake still lap at the Jetty you get some spectacular vistas in all directions. And that’s about the excitement of the Jetty. I know, somewhat anti climatic, sorry. We hit the road after a bit at the Jetty and on our way back to the highway I remembered that ATK’s “Rocket Garden” was just up the road a bit so we thought we’d stop in there a bit. Glad we did. It’s awesome to think that this remote part of Utah has played such a pivotal part in the country’s space and defense industry. The Rocket Garden displays many of ATK’s historically important rocket motors and components ranging from old Nike Anti-Ballistic Missiles to the Shuttles primary booster and a Minuteman Missile. A very interesting stop even if you only have a passing interest in such things. It was a very enjoyable day and everyone had a good time, even though they had to endure my history ramblings for most of the day. I’m hoping to head out on a lot more of these one or two-day weekend jaunts all this summer. If you're interested in joining, pay attention to this section as I'll be posting upcoming trips here.

I'm in the Foothill area of SLC.

Excellent write up! Great info for us new Pathy owners!

Thanks for all the warm greetings guys! I stripped brush guard and rack off this week and it looks 100% better. Today or tomorrow I'm going to be replacing all the fluids except the ATF, which will wait until next weekend when I install the new tranny fluid cooler. Will also be checking the height of everything and probably leveling out the front end. NPORA is a wealth of information! Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the info. I've heard a lot about the transmission cooler and have been digging around on NPORA to find info about that. But I suppose I can just ask here as well. Got a recommendation about what type/brand of aftermarket cooler I should be looking at and where to get it?

Thanks! I definitely need to hit up the self service yards around here to look for an LSD then. I understand there is a sticker on them, is that correct. Big is relative I suppose. Still, super stoked!