shift_love

Snow4me, I taped them because it keeps them on there better and reduces squeekyness later ok down the road. it's actually a part of a tsb Nissan released for cars that squeak like that lol. And I always just throw away the gaskets cause I really don't see the point of them. It's not like water is going to rot out the strut brackets because it's not a water tight seal in between the bracket and the insulator.

nah, i haven't done it yet, but ill just run the vin on dcs and check to make sure if it hasn't been done or not yet...thanks for reminding me of the trans cooler set up, i intend on getting one when i get to the swap, my tranny was from 06/00 i couldn't go past 07/00 or else id have to do a bunch of internal and electronics work and that would make the swap out of question for me since I'm tired of that stuff...but i suppose if my r50 needs the power valve screws done ill just have to suck it up and do it...i hate those little buggers, but a few years ago they made me a lot of money when qr25 altimas were blowing motors left and right because of them and nissan ended up doing a total recall of the engine lmao gotta love em though

heres a couple pics next to 01silvapathy's 6inch sfd le r50 on 35's...proud of my lift no more, mine looked pretty stock sitting next to his so now for the future plans the interior...and radio...i love it, its going to remain stock, the bose system (which was broken when i bought the truck) actually doesnt dissapoint, its kinda lacking in some volume for my blown out ears but it sounds super clean and crisp, i also love the woodgrain and since i had to search a junkyard for the top vent piece when i replaced the cd player im not gonna touch it again so my future plans at the moment are 1. figuring out a solution to mount my hi-lift jack 2. using the spare carrier off of a wd21 swing rack to mount a spare on my roof basket 3. picking either a kenmtn bumper, or a heavy f'king duty grille guard 4. mounting some hella fog lights on above mentioned modification 5. and starting and finishing my 4wd conversion 6. EXHAUST 7. and lastly possibly an intake now i imagine at this point yall are saying "what the frakin frak???" well thing is, my r50 is super clean, i got a great deal on it and bought it from a dealer in town that my dealership often does business with, i looked and looked and looked for a clean vq35 r50 but couldnt find one at the time for under $9k so i opted for the $4000 option, well truth be told it saved me at least $4000 because last saturday i picked up the following parts: front spindles with hubs, axles, brand newish rotors, and abs sensors front diff front diff mounting brackets front driveshaft manual tx10 transfer case tx10 shifter, bracket, boot and interior finisher in BLACK to match my interior perfectly (together $800) and then tuesday i scored an insane hookup through a wholesale account at work and bought a new 4wd auto tranny with only 32k miles with the same valve body and electronics as my pathy (crossed tons of part numbers in FAST at work) all for a slender $450 and then TODAY i purchased WARN manual hubs online for 168 shipped (had $10 coupon) so in total ive spent $1418 and will still need to buy new output shaft seals and front cv boots (just to do them while theyre accessible) and a rear driveshaft and ill be good to go, so ill estimate a high of $1600 total 4wd project...sure as hell beats spending an extra 5k on a truck just for its 4wd option so i leave yall with that, i have the plans, i have the desire, and i have the skill and know how to complete that project, it will probably start in a month when it gets a bit warmer outside and i can drive the z to work without fearing a cold rain with excessive winds or hail because after my 3k hail job body repair of last year i want to baby the crap out of that car...so thats all for now, when i figure out my jack mount and spare mount ill post some pics and how to's for whoever is interested in reading it

as soon as i got done with the gigantic task of trying to compress the front springs i knew that the rear would go by incredibly fast so i jacked the rear up...dont do it by the diff or when you drop the truck onto stands youll realize that the REAR WHEELS still arent off the ground (LMFAO) anyways, i took a look at it, unbolted the the shocks at the top on the body and then here at the bottom of the axle well...that was good enough to drop one side enough to pull out the stock spring, but not to put in the new super long one, so a quick bulk text to 01silvapathy, mudfilledvaynes, and the shop foreman at work and i had a solution, disconnect the rear sway bar and flex the axle up on the opposite side shown here next was somthing that i really struggled with, i wanted a little extra bump in the rear so i could get as much out of this project as possible, i searched high and low for a rear spring spacer that wasnt made by mr.fskcinggasket and wasnt an air compressed spring "helper" primarily made for towing, so i ordered up a set of the factory upper spring seat rubbers from work, they fit on the lower mount pretty well and provided at least 1/3" of lift in the rear, they were intitally 1" tall but i imagine after some smushing theyll settle out to anywhere from 1/3"-3/4" i thought id be happy with at least an extra third or half so i bought them, and at $10 a piece my cost it wasnt a bad idea heres the final assembly shown and now finally pictures of the completed lift!!! it was about 11;30 when we finally finished it and it was f'ing cold outside, we had been working on it since 2pm and had just done the show in austin the night before so needless to say we were tired, my girlfriend is quite the trooper and a pretty skilled helper, after years of her learning from helping me with projects and as a final tid bit, an alignment is absolutely necessary, i had insane positive camber and toe when this was all said and done, seeing as how im used to negative camber on my cars (and liking it) it looked awful, not to mention it was bouncy as all get out until i got it aligned, i went to oreillys and bought the alignment bolts, that brought it back into 3/10ths of a degree out of max spec, and then eventually when the springs settle a bit it will be perfect heres a pile of fill dirt in my moms front yard she was using to fill in a sinkhole next to the pool water filter and backwash system doesnt look that tall, but i didnt want to high center on it either

once you have your spring compressed enough, replace your upper spring seat rubber for an extra 3mm of lift HAHAHA... even if the seat is cocked sideways at first go ahead and place the strut bearing, bracket, and insulator on (in that order) and snug that nut on, as you decompress the spring it will eventually unwind into a favorable position and line up perfectly then place the nx4 spacer up top it should end up looking like this the insulator will no longer come out of the top of the strut tower with the nx4 spacer on top, i ordered the brakets with the longer studs welded in in stock size (as opposed to the 1/2" dia bolts offered) so i didnt need to drill anything heres the final product for the front with the new wheels and tires on next post is the rear, and future plans

So now that yall have read some @!*% about rural internet speeds and the beginning of my thread here come part two, this time we are going to be filled with pictures, explanations, tips, tools, and more pictures of my beloved pathy, not to be confused with my old wd21 that carrigan now owns, which whenever i see it i hug and look at admiringly ON WITH THE PICS here it is all loaded up, i purchased 16x8 cragar soft 8 wheels with 4in of back spacing from summit racing for a meager $54 each, quite the steal seeing as how 4x4parts.com recommends you use 3.75in backspacing wheels but they sell them for around $95 each, i decided id take the gamble on this because if need be i had a set of 1/4 inch spacers lying around at work that i picked up for $Free.99, i also opted to buy used tires first because i couldnt make up my mind on either 32's or 33's so i picked up 2 bfg ta a/t ko's and two goodyear wranglers for $140 for now, i love the bfg's and how they look, not too crazy about the goodyears though :? so just as a comparison, here it is in the beginning, unloaded and parked at my moms, so we can see the final result i have taken a picture in the same parking spot for the end of the post, i started by taking off all four center caps, and loosening all lug nuts, but not too much, just enough to make it easier when the front or rear is lifted to keep the wheels from spinning the entire day before i was pretty stressed because i knew, just knew id end up having an issue, i love doing suspension upgrades as its my favorite area of vehicle modification and tuning, and last time on my z i ran into sway bad endlink problems, well heres a solution! my girlfriend had bought me a craftsman hollow socket rachet set, it looked cool in the adverts and boy did it deliver, when i first went to remove the first nut on the endlink it seized and spun on the ball joint, well luckily nissan tools an allen opening into the endlink and i was able to jam an allen wrench against the strut body and torque the nut off with the ratchet for an easy dissasembly, CRISIS AVERTED!!! i was so happy opposite side works in reverse... next, remove the abs sensor wire from its perch and heavily douse liquid wrench or pb blaster on the strut bolts and caliper bolts if you plan on doing some pads while youre here, it makes for breaking the nuts off even easier theres also a small 10mm bolt holding a random bracket on the abs sensor wire to the strut, above that is the brake line tab that you can easily force off with a big flathead, or plyers if you feel like it now that everything is off on the bottom, remove the three nuts on the strut tower and the strut should come down when you have the struts off its time to begin compressing the springs. i originally purchased just one spring compressor kit from oriellys (for about $30) and it worked just fine for dissasembly but since the lift is based off of the principle of a heavy duty spring with more coils you can tell that it wont be as easy to compress down to fit on the new (or if youre keeping the same ones old) strut assy's notice the nx4 1" spacer in the bottom right corner, this is to add an extra 1" of spacing to front because with the stock AC 2" lift it gives the vehicle a noticeable rake up front...and i want more frontal clearance to get over some hills or rocks or piles of dead bodies or whatever...lol...jk anywho... so HANG UP #1 i tried and tried and tried to compress the new springs with the one compressor but finally gave up and bought a second kit, i started by compressing the spring as much as i could with the one kit and then added the second kit to the furthest out coils i could reach and alternated, it ended up looking something like this

theres pics posted of it in my intro thread here http://www.nissanpathfinders.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=32034 so the work for the weekend has been decided, but i still need to post my lift portion of the thread and then ill move on to the new upgrade, then ive still got...jack mount, spare mount, rubbing issues, and gas mileage/upsized tire calculations oh joy...i really hope that this whole deal hasnt hurt my gas mileage as much as im fearing it will cause i need to retain some of it...i guess winter is almost over and ill be able to daily the 350z again soon

Those paper thin cork gaskets that nissan puts on there from factory seriously seem like a giant waste of time and money, also, i just installed nx4 spacers with the 3/8's bolts and it was a great fit, i bought them with the strut bracket so the bolts would be welded in, id rather not have to drill the holes bigger on anything just in case i plan to go back to stock one day

The whole 56k thing is just random forum speak for "hey this thread has an ass ton of pictures!" I see it more in the s chassis world and local stuff as there's still parts of Texas that don't have crap but 56k. The hinges came off of an r50, the factory mounted spoilers have cut outs in the hatch that it sits down into, the accessory kit that Nissan sold for a few years that doesn't even exist anymore used these hinges. It seemed like a way better idea than having huge holes that could leak into the interior...damn Nissan... Lol. Anyways, yea, the particular reason I bought this particular one was because it was so damn clean, had cloth interior (leather plus Texas heat...kinda too hot during the summer) and it was a really good deal...I wanted another 4x4 pathfinder but a vq r50 in my area would have cost me twice as much. I figure if I really decided that it was that big of a deal to me I'd find a donor in a junk yard and convert it possibly (yes let the flaming begin) but with my access to the correct part numbers that would be applicable and what not (since I work Nissan parts) so it would be a lot easier to make sure of what parts will or won't cross. That was a little rambly but I get carried away...anyways. I have a ton more pictures and a lot more to type up about my lift kit so stay tuned!!!

So after months of research and browsing of the npora forum I decided it was time to transform my newly acquired pathy from a van to a truck. So here we are......ill start this part with a set up of the build and the treacherousness I had to overcome. first up, for whatever repressed bizarre teenage emotions i had inside of my mid twenties body i wanted to install some clear corners on it, i really dont like the look of orange on these trucks and i think that clear corners would really make the grille pop, so i bought some off ebay for $30 and promptly installed them i also went ahead and buffed the headlights out by hand because the yellowing lens' right next to brand new clear lens' would have looked really tacky, besides, it was free maintenance and i can see better now too next up is some more repressed teenage styling cues, honestly people, i think i have pretty good taste in picking my accesories, but this one was a must, theres just something about the loony factory spoilers that i jus love, fortuneately i found one at a junk yard for about $10 with the factory hinges so it could be easily installed in 20 minutes or less, strangely enough, this junkyard has some pretty intimidating longhorn cattle guards that may or may not gore you if you try and slip a free part in your tool bag lmao to install the factory accessory spoiler all you have to do is start by opening your hatch, tape down the glass to make sure it doesnt slide off and break unexpectedly, remove the plastic trim from around the thrid brake light and losen two nuts and two screws on each hinge then screw the spoiler into place on the factory hinge pedastals yea it may be kinda goofy but i love it :roll: so here we are It was a Thursday night. I had to drop my dog off at my moms for the weekend because my band was booked to play a gig in Austin after a long heartfelt goodbye I left the little guy alone in the kitchen. I haven't been apart from my dog for longer than 12 hours in almost 2 years so it was kinda weird. I woke up to go to work that morning at 6am, worked until 3:30 and drove home to meet the guys so they could pick me up and promptly leave for our 4 hour drive south. It was a great show and we were received well. We play punk rock music, but it has a horrific twist, songs are usually centered around zombies, conspiracies, necrophilia, and pseudo cannibalistic acts with poppy backing music. we garnish the attention of a lot of psychobilly/rockabilly bands, so we fit right in. Unfortunately my drummer and bassist had to be at work at 7am the next morning so at 1:30am we set out to return home. I drove the first 150 miles and my girlfriend drove the rest while we all napped (possibly, but hopfully not including her lol) . We made it home at about 5am that morning and promptly went to sleep. You're probably asking yourself why this is important. Well this is where it gets hard. At about 12:30 that day I woke my girlfriend up and told her that even though I was deadly tired I wanted to take advantage of the day and install the lift kit and safari basket on my pathfinder. So we set out. Much thanks to Trevor cosette of Canadia (lol) I purchased a barely worn (yes worn, not used) princess auto basket for 175 shipped. It has a great design, is lightweight, is easy to install, and looks fantastic to boot. When it came in the hardware was all rusted so I replaced all bolts with stainless hex bolts from work as opposed to the black Allen bolts it came with. I also sanded down and reprinted the mounting u bolts that were pretty rusty so that the rack could easily survive another decade of Texas weather. All in all the assembly and installation took about 1 hour. i wish i had taken more pictures of the assembly and installation but i didnt, it was super easy so i didnt think it was necessary. this basket will come in handy to use as a spare carrier and a place to mount my hi-lift jack, so if i go out and have some fun i always have a backup plan that will save me as opposed to paying a wrecker to come out to a strange destination, or if carrigan cant come out in my old wd21 and pull me out somewhere lol this basket is great quality and super duper lightweight too, too bad for anyone now interested in it, its discontinued Next up was conquering the suspension.

So I've promised this thread and I'd like to start the story right. It was a Saturday afternoon. Bored at work and browsing Craigslist for cheap 240 parts. I grew tired of the hunt and decided to search for a new tow vehicle since I was growing tired of using my dads beat up Chevy. I knew I wanted a Nissan or a Toyota. So I began to search. Eventually I came upon a month old ad for a 1993 green Nissan pathfinder 4x4. Ecstatic I fumbled for my phone and dialed the number listed at the bottom of the screen. It was mine. I could taste it. Later that evening I picked up my new vehicle. Absolutely delighted, it was ragged and rough, but it had a certain quality that I just couldn't stop loving. ...this picture was taken by the current owner, but i couldnt find one of my own to contribute lol... We had some good times together, getting my girlfriend and i home in the middle of a christmas eve ice storm and following the dodge squad through the woods i was in love. Unfortunately every time it did its job of pulling my 240 drift car on a trailer it felt as if it was seriously struggling. Fearing for the worst I decided it was time to part ways. I needed something better. Something with a higher tow capacity made by Nissan that wouldn't fail. $2500 and a $500 replacement frontier later and I have my clean as fskc 2001 pathfinder. I had initially bought the old parts delivery frontier from work, replaced the much needed head gaskets, but it's 27x,xxx mile vg33e and tranny worried me enough to hawk it. Luckily though, I basically made $2000 off it when it went towards the trade for my r50. i was pretty proud of it when i got it, because i love the vq so much and now every vehicle i own has a vq35 in it lol. my s14=vq, my z33=vq, my r50=VQ hooray

lol geez on the condensor talk anyways, yea i actually drained a couple quarts out of it the other night so i could make sure the fluid level was exact, but its still doing it this morning, although it seemed a little better today than it was yesterday... but how about the whole tail shaft extention between the 2wd and 4wd, will they cross over? that would make things a hell of a lot easier

forgot to add, that i did a drain and refill with nissan matic d the other day and it still has the same symptoms...dont think i overfilled it either, let it drain while i replaced my plugs, could overfilling it cause the same symptoms?

so heres the deal, on my 2001 r50 a/t, in cold weather my transmission slips pretty bad between gears if ive got my foot in it, slips kinda inbetween gears with normal driving...so question 1. is this normal behavior for our trannies to act like this? when it was still summer it didnt really act like this so i dont know if its just a temperature thing, i used to have a vg33e frontier that had like 295k miles on it before my pathfinder and it didnt do any of these things ever but it had head problems and would randomly overheat so i traded it to a dealer for the r50 and made like 2k off of it... next question, if i need a new tranny are the 4wd and 2wd trannies the same with the exception of the tail extention, like, could i take the tail extention off a 2wd tranny and bolt a transfer case to a 2wd tranny visa versa third and last question, do we have any other options for transmissions from other vehicles for r50's equipped with vq's, i searched and ive found a couple things but they all pertained to the vg33e pathfinders being able to use xterra and frontier trannys... so if yall have some sweet info for me to go over or know where i can find such info let me know...

thats in fantastic shape, reminds me of my first pathfinder...i love it dude

It looks like another dang crossover. Nissan is trying to be innovative. That's all I hear in our online training we gotta do every six months. They love what apple has done and they want to be as "innovative" as them. Again with that word, moving forward "shift_the way you move" totally lame. When I first made my Internet handle was back when the shift campaign first started and it was different for every vehicle/expierience. The slogan for the new pf should be shift_down the tubes. This thing has no resemblance to what Nissan built their suv reputation on. They're trying to hang on to the coat tails of the murano/fx35 success that they recently killed with the murano cross cabriolet. I sit and stare at a white murano vert that sits in front of my parts window everyday. It's ugly. People walk by and comment on how they think it's so cool, but they'd never buy one. It just doesn't offer the rugged looks an suv should offer. In 2004 Nissan brought in the armada with a pathfinder nameplate on it to carry the success over. We also have the xterra. IMO the x has stolen the small suv limelight, the armada has the big platform, and then there's the pathfinder. It has no place to go. With nissans complete concentration on crossovers or funky hatchbacks it seems as if the path (literally) has been lost. They want an in between but it will never be the same. Pathfinder guys, welcome to the world of pain us 240sx guys suffer when Nissan officially dropped s-chassis cars, no more entry level sports coupe. No more mid grade nostalgic 4x4 bad ass suv. Only the big, the little, and the ugly.

pm'd if youve still got it im down...this is officially mod month for me, sorry for bumping an old thread if this is gone btw

this is rather brilliant idea, ill have to look into doing this on the s14 drift car cause air would always be sweet for tires and fixing beads from overly stretched tires i agree with the cookie guy lmao

pm sent

holy crap rear steering? thats pretty sick

so sick its not even cool, its way past that, i agree with everyone else, swap that tranny for a 5 speed

get one of those funnel kits that fits inside the radiator where the cap goes, open that valve, and run the motor with coolant in the funnel and wait for it to suck it all down, itll relieve air through the valve on the motor and suck in more coolant...as soon as you dont have coolant being sucked in and nothing but coolant coming out of the relief you should be good to go, squeezing air pockets out of your upper and lower hose may help speed the process as well...youve just gotta get the motor up to op temp for this all to start working...if this still doesnt work and youre overheating you may have a clogged radiator as well. i had a 2001 vg33e frontier that did this, i know the vq is totally different but theyre working off of the same principles

Holy hell your country has some beautiful locations...texas is very flat and plain lol

No offense taken. I was just unsure of the attitude towards winged cars on a offroad forum lol. Just making sure y'all knew where the modifications came from/where intended for on that particular vehicle. And the vg's great and all. But parts are plentiful for the vq currently and they weigh less and I like being able to diagnose easily with consult 2.