The_Magicians_Eye

Good luck with this project. You got to learn some place and trying it is better than dreaming about it. I have a few recommendations based upon what your plans are. *** Buy a proper tubing bender. If you plan on building a cage you need this to bend the tubing properly. Yes their are hacks that people claim will work. However if you're serious about doing this sort of work you need a tubing bender. The quality of the bend is a major aspect to the structural integrity of a roll cage. *** Stay very far away from welding galvanized metal. Just because it sticks together doesn't mean it's structurally sound and we could go on for days about the health concerns from breathing in those fumes. Steel tubing of this same size is not expensive at all. I pay $20 per 24 foot length of 1" tubing 16 gauge wall. I'm sure you local steel supplier wouldn't be much different. *** Go buy a gas tank for that welder and start burning MIG wire to do this sort of work. It's an investment that pays for itself almost instantly. Flux cord burns hot and as a result isn't good for welding up thin steel. Sure it can be done but when welding flux core on thin metal you'll be forced to stop and start to keep the heat from building up and having your puddle drop out. Starting and stopping when using flux core or stick welding is bad news. Every time you stop you should be cleaning up the area before starting to weld again. The slag will get into the new weld and cause porosity. You don't need to do any of this to build your roof rack. But if you are using this build to gain the skills needed to do a cage you should really try and build it properly. This way everything you learn will move you forward in your skill set rather than having to sort out what problems were caused by cutting corners vs what problems are from just not knowing any better. It's just my advise. Good luck with the build.

Ok so I did some test fitting today. Made sure the wheel centers actually fit the wheels lol. Everything looks great. I did waste some money on those valve stems. The 24 bolt paired H1 wheels do not use this type of valve stem. So I'll chalk that up as a loss and something I should have researched more before buying parts. Oh well... Anyway I'll be cutting the factory centers tomorrow and welding in the new centers. The rock rings will have to wait until I get my blast cabinet up and running. I want to blast the outer wheel so that they have a nice clean finish to trash once I hit the trails lol.

I'd been awhile since I've been on the site. However I got something in the works for the Pathy. Everything should be finished by June (of this year lol). SAS D44 out of an early Bronco H1 wheels and either 36" IROK or 35 inch Super Swamper SSR Full Cage And I hope to start on the custom interior too. This might be a next winter project though. I need to focus on the cage and the mechanical parts first. First things first. Time to shave down my Dana 44 and remove the old radius arm wedges from the axle tubes. And here are the parts needed to build my H1 wheels. I'm building a blast cabinet so as soon as that is finished I'll wrap up these wheels. I want to blast them before I weld on the rock rings.

Here are more pics and a video. This is a photo to show you the light pattern and how much light those little COB LEDs put out. Here is a close up of the Powder Coat texture. Here is the link to the video that also shows more of the COB LED light output.

Just testing out the backup lights. Not super bright but this will help while backing up on the trails at night. Plus I'm going to wire them up on a switch too. This way I can turn them on at camp if I need some extra light. The low amp draw will allow me to keep them on for much longer than the factory backup lights while the truck is not running. Maybe even turn them on if someone is tailgating me at night lol.

Back from powder coat. Lights mounted. Just need to wire everything up an actually bolt the thing to the roof.

More pics and progress on the roof rack.

Well it's not bad. Just not as good as I wanted. I finally got all the metal today to finish this. Built my LED bar mounts and the mounts for the LED backup lights that I plan on putting on it too. Other than powder coating this should be done by the end of the weekend.

One of the mounting brackets for my roof rack is just about finished. I had to modify the design at the last min due to some miscalculations. And the fact that I didn't like the way they looked at first. All I know is I need to spend more time tig welding steel. These welds don't look as good as I wanted but it's to late now lol. Good thing it's going to be covered up with a textured power coating lol. P.S. This part is very time consuming. That's why it's taken me a year to update this thread lol.

Broome Tioga Sports Center. Just north of Binghamton. If the damn owner ever contacts me back we maybe planning our annual run there in May or Jun. You would be more than welcome to attend.

Thanks guys. That helps a lot.

PS I'll repair all the broken image links soon. I won't be linking to FB photos anymore...

So I haven't worked on my truck in a long time. The last thing I did was swap the auto trans so I could actually go wheeling last year. That lasted almost 2 months before the replacement failed and calling AAA. At that point I decided that I was not going to do another auto swap. Anyone that has done that knows what a massive pain in the ass that job is. I can't even do it myself because my hands and arms are to fat to reach some of the bolts. I wasn't sure what I was going to do just because finding a manual trans WD21 or D21 up here in Syracuse in a JY is not easy at all. Most of these are long rotted away. I was considering many options including V8 swap, and an adapter that would allow me to bolt a TH400 to the VG30. Long story short a buddy of mine called me last weekend informing me that our local yard had a hardbody with a 5 speed manual trans in it. I rushed over there to find that it was a 4 banger. However after stewing in my own @!*% for a few minutes I realized that all wasn't that bad. I found the damn peddle assembly! With that I could have a MT shipped to me and I would have the bulk of the parts needed to do the swap. So after spending a few hours in the JY I had the peddles in hand and a few other parts. I headed home found myself a FS5R30A 5 speed manual trans in a yard that's about 2 hours from me. I placed my order and I should have that Thursday if call goes as planned. Now after days and days of research I believe I know everything I need to do this swap outside of the electrical. I'm not worried about that to be honest though. I maybe pulling the dash I just swapped into it and building a custom one when I cage my truck. For those that have installed peddles into our trucks you know how hard it is to access the bolts and that there is an air duck completely in the way of two of the clutch peddle bolts and blocking the clearance needed to fit it into place. So rather than fighting with it I figured now would be a good time to pull the dash, build a new one and build my cage too. My truck is not a daily driver anymore so I want to simplify everything on it. I'll be going through all of the electrical and getting rid of the things I don't need and reconfiguring the things I do. The roof rack is also something I need to finish too. I stopped on that project when I blew up the auto trans. Oh and after my local clubs annual event in a few months you can expect a radius arm sas to begin. It's time I get all this taken care of!!! Stay Tuned!!!!

Awesome man. Thank you for helping with what you could. That helps allot. I live in Upstate NY and all D21 and WD21 are very hard to find in yards out here. You may get lucky and find one maybe 2 in a yard. And god only knows that they won't have all the parts you need lol. I was thinking that the flex plate bolts wouldn't work but I couldn't find anything that confirmed it.

Ok first off I've spent days researching this but I still have a few questions. Will the Flex Plate Bolts work with the flywheel? I really would rather not pay $5 per bolt to get them from Nissan. While searching for a flywheel I ran across a flywheel shim. Is this needed or is this some for of compensation for the starter to line up that is typically not needed? I see they come in different sizes. Do any of you know what a good tool would be to remove the small adapter in the crank (or whatever it's called) so I can install the pilot bearing for the manual trans. When I say good tool I'm talking about something that will remove it easily and not ruin my damn day lol. It looks like the shifter out of an FS5W71 (4 cylinder 5 speed) will work in a FS5R30A (Vg30 5 speed). Can anyone verify this before I waste my time and money going to a JY an pulling one out of the FS5W71. I know the base plate is the same part number but the R30A has more clips and BS on the actual shifter. When looking at the exploded images of the shifter, the shifter it self looks the same. Do any of you have any pics or video to show the hydraulic line location before it attaches to the slave cylinder? I need to see how I should be routing the line. Thank you. If all goes well I'm going to be doing this swap over the next month or two depending on how much spare money I have to buy all the parts needed. I'll have most of them in a week or so though. I also have to budget for my sas that I plan to address as soon as I finish this manual swap. Need to get my truck ready for wheeling season!

Is the TX10 on the 4 cylinder the same as the TX10 on the VG30?

looks great man. Glad that pathy found a good home and didn't event out parted our or left to rot behind some building.

I'm up in Syracuse. There is an event that I'll be taking my truck to next month in Broome County. That's not to far from you.

The_Magicians_Eye

Just another update on the build.

It's coming together quite nicely! Both top and bottom frames are complete. The top frame only has one seem. This may not be a big deal to those that bend tubing all the time but it's a bid deal for me lol. After spending two days racking my brain with numbers and measurements I finally got the measurements just right and documented everything so that I can build these over and over again if someone else wants one too. What you're seeing between the two frames are jigs that I build to line up both the top and bottom frames perfectly. Now I need to figure out what my next step will be. Most likely the cross braces for the floor.

The roof rack is really happening finally lol. These are my first 5 bends with my JD Squared, Inc Model 32 bender since I bought it over a year ago. It took me 5 bends but I think I got all the data needed to use this die set properly without any waste or measurement miss calculations. Expect some videos about this in the near future. I have to fix a couple miscalculation on this bottom frame but the top one should only require one single seem if all goes as expected.