Mr. Pickles

Definately look around for that shop manual, especially on eBay. I've seen them and wished I bought one. The Haynes manual is good for kindling to start a fire, adn that's about it.

Thanks for the support on this mess. Hopefully, I'm not going to have to worry about that last mount. When I've finished off the rest of the lift, I'm looking at limping it to a trusted shop to have it dealt with, as I don't have the time or tools to deal with it. I think it should be ok to leave the mounts exposed on the driver's side (the side with the broken bolt) in case we have to drop it back down. I'm gonna get the rest ready to go, as I've taken Friday off on top of Saturday since I obviously can't work on it Sunday afternoon (Superbowl). I was counting on a quick install, and honestly, other than this stupid mount, it really has been fine. Most everything has been straight forward, with just the normal B.S. popping up. But at this point, I'm doing it in the carport in front of my townhouse, and the neighbors are starting to bitch. I can't wait to sell this place and buy a house! Then its time for a proper shop. sly So, barring anything stupid coming up, which I doubt, it should be fine. I've had some issues with rust and such on other areas of my truck, so it isn't a total suprise.

Well, hopefully I won't have to worry about it much. I should be able to limp her to a shop when I figure out the other B.S. There's a local guy that I've had work on my stuff before that should be able to take care of that mount. So I'm looking at finishing the lift other than that last mount, then taking it to him for surgery. I'll leave the interior mounts clear in case it needs to be jacked up. I'm ready for this thing to be done soon.

You can't, its one of the ones that bolts from the bottom up into the body with no nut on the other end. A completely pain in the butt design, especially since the others like this are reluctant to start threading as well. The normal bolt/nut ones are a snap.

Well, the last bolts in the rear are the metric ones that go in from the bottom and screw through the frame into the body with no top access. It may have been different for the 2 doors. Its frozen not only in to the threads, but also the the metal sleeve/bushing and the stock rubber mount around that. I'm thinking that with it lifted up, a body shop or somebody with the right equipment could cut it off at the body, then drill and tap it from there. There's no way to do it with normal tools, as you'd be drilling out 5" or so of bolt. If you could cut it off and get in there with some air tools, you may have a chance. Maybe its time to weld in a some steel there instead of the lift block and call it permanent if nothing else. Has anybody heard of something like this? Just a thought. No problems with the power steering lines, as I haven't gotten to mounting the reservoir in its new location yet.

I discovered some random stuff along the way. There is no bolt in the top of the steering shaft, its just empty. That helped in it falling out. Why, I'm not sure. The rear mount across from the broken one refuses to line up, so that will be fun. The others lined up perfectly, so that I just dropped the bolt and it went straight. So, she's sitting on the front 8 of 10 blocks and is looking good. The 31's seem tiny, but they're almost bald so that should change. But I'm dead in the water now. I rolled the dice and decided to do it here at home (townhouse with a carport) because I know the tools I have, and I wanted to keep it close. Now its Sunday night, I'm nowhere near done, the neighbors are whining, and I have no light. So its pretty much gonna sit till next weekend. I'll get the bumper figured out and close to mounted.

Ok, I give on the last body bolt. I'm pretty convinced that busted bolt is beyond me, so I'm gonna continue on for now and skip that one mount. I know, ghetto! But my plan is to talk to the body shop up the street and see if they can do it. Hopefully I can limp her up there when everything else is done and let a pro fix that mess. Next issue. The steering shaft. Statikuz and Cuong said they were able to just loosen it and it would slide and adjust to fit. Well, I tried this and got a nice *thunk* while lifting the body. This was the shaft falling out from the top. The bottom is seated tight, even though its loosened, and the slide thing in the middle doesn't want to move after much PB Blaster. Any suggestions on this? Is there a way to break it loose to pull out, other than prying it?

There's money and beer to the person who can come and check out this mess, and suggest a better solution. :secret:

Well, if I'm not able to drill this sucker out, how stable to you think she'd be with 9 out of 10 mounts? -alcohol- The head snapped off, so its time for more fun.

Here's the head of the bolt in the grasp of the beast.

Precise, that's what I was talking about and what I bought. I'm back to update that, yes, those things are great. They have teeth that spiral upward in the direction of turning for extraction, so basically as you torque on it, the extractor digs itself in for a tight grip. Too tight, actually... Which brings me to where I'm at now. I used the breaker and a 3' long, 1" diameter iron pipe slipped over as a cheater. The extractor dug in, and Cranked it about a quarter turn and *ping* off came the head. So its on to phase 2 of trying to drill it out or something. This would be much easier if the body was off. At least I don't have to worry about cutting or chiseling the head off!

By the way, I'd like to thank Statikuz for the insight on your lift. The thread you started and the questions you asked helped me out a bit. I quickly had answers to several WTF?!? type things from the initial install and incredibly vague directions that were included. At the same time, I'd like to give a simultaneous award to the authors of the AC/Performance Accessories instructions and the Haynes manual for their outstanding effort at providing completely worthless information and a pathetic attempt at providing directions and instructions on how to perform the intended work on a Pathfinder. Were these written by the same person?! It would take some serious stones to print up those pages on a publisher's ink when you must know that whoever tries to follow your instructions is going to be asking "what was this guy smoking."" I'll adjust credit to the lift instructions, as they are only printed on 1 page so you can't expect much. One example was something to the effect of "remove bolt from shaft near steering box, mark splines before removing shaft." I'm in a fog, so I go to the book, and find something like "remove bolt, mark splines and remove shaft (see illustrations)" and I swear, there are no illustrations AT ALL that are relevant. The closest they have for a tear down is a 1980 Datsun with manual steering, and after that is a hand drawn sketch of something close to a mid-80's hardbody. So, happy times and thanks to those that helped. To the rest including the instructions, you can go to h3LL. pssd But, a quick glance the the body lift thread revealed knowledge of the loosening and adjustment of the steering shaft that was golden from Cuong Nguyen and Matterhorn that I hope to employ tomorrow.

I tried it with an old don'tgiveadamn ratchet and a 3' section of steel/jack handle, and it just laughed at me and busted the ratchet. I've picked up some additional toys tonight to play with it, including an 18" breaker bar (plus a cheater, of course), a set of Bob Vila's proud extractor thingy's, and if that doesn't do the job, I'm gonna go McGyver on that isht tomorrow. If I don't finish tomorrow, good thing I work close by and I can catch a bus doorstep to doorstep pretty much.

Seriously, I don't know what's up. The most I've heard, you may have some luck pulling the door panel and lubing all the associated door lock linkages, as well as the lock cylinders themselves. But who knows if it works, as I haven't gotten around to that. On an annoying note, we had a cold snap a couple weeks ago (in the teens at night) and near as I can tell, it messed with the seal on my doors or something. All the sudden, on the coldest nights, I'd wake up to a tripped alarm every morning. She pulled a similar trick on the hottest days of the summer(around 100, which is freakin hot in the Seattle area). Also, I'd have crazy wind noise driving to work in the mornings like an air leak, and now I just discovered that I have a water leak that has soaked the backing on the carpet, especially on the passenger side. I'm thinking the door seals and possibly the lock mechanisms are questionable in heat extremes with age. We had cold, then border line with freezing rain and such, and I think some moisture leaked in. Time to pull the carpet this spring. So, any other takers on this theory of questionable sealing?

Dude, your truck is looking awesome! The inlaws have a green 03 like yours, but I can't seem to talk them into toys for it. Please post some specs all at once of what you installed, what height you ended up with, etc. If you did already, I'm sorry, just slap me across bandwidth. Those rims are cool, and ya gotta love the meatier rubber. Congrats and good job.

Well, its already screwed up and I have to pound on the normal size (14mm) just to get it on. I picked up a set of the Craftsman extractor things at Sears, as well as an 18" breaker bar from the Harbor Freight store, so we'll see. Vice grips are not happening, cause its in a sort of a channel next to the frame and above the tail pipe. I pulled my reciever hitch already to make more room, and I'm gonna give it a shot in the morning. If it doesn't work, I'll pull the bolt on the other side to check for length. If it isn't too long, I'm gonna have an excuse to try out my new toy, a Makita angle grinder, and throw on a cut off wheel. Hopefully I could cut the head off and drill it out if all else fails. We'll see...

I'm almost to the promised land in the install of my body lift, but the rear body mount bold on the driver's side is siezed up. In trying to get it off, I broke a ratchet (no, not a Craftsman!) and also had the socket slip off and round the corners on the head of the bolt. I was wondering first off if anybody has tried one the of those Craftsman bolt remover things Bob Vila is always hawking on commercials, that has the teeth to grab the bolt. I think I'm gonna go ahead and buy one anyways tonight while I'm out, then decided whether or not to use it tomorrow. After that, who knows. Heat, chisel, maybe I'll drill the sucker out, but that's a seriously big bolt. Any ideas? Its soaked for several hours in PB Blaster at this point.

Well, its gone from great to completely screwed. The very last mount on the driver's side at the tailpipe is siezed completely with no sign of moving anywhere. Its soaked in PB Blast for 2 hours with multiple sprays and won't even budge. I broke a ratchet on it, and the socket slipped off and stripped the head. Now what? I have all the mounts on the driver's side off, and the passenger side has all at least broken loose. This is exactly the crap I was afraid was going to happen. I'm off to the store not to buy a torch and hopefully heat it up without catching the Blaster on fire. Other than that, I don't know what to do? Buy a chisel and tap set, then try to somehow cut the head off, drill it out and then tap it? Talk about a pain and a ton of time gone.

Lunch break/update time. I rolled under the Pathy at 9:30 am, its now 12:30. I've followed the steps and am cruising along. I have all the lines unclipped (I think!- of course I'm going to go back and triple check), brackets pulled, shifter boots pulled, just got the bumper off. Everything is coming apart super easy, and I've barely even touched the PB Blaster. That's because she was mildly wrecked last Jan, so most front end parts are new or were taken apart then and haven't had a chance to rust up. So, next step (after one last check for anything I may have missed) is to start uncovering the body mounting bolts, cut the fuel filler hose, etc. etc. and get ready to lift her! I'm sure that's going to be much more involved that what I've done so far, cause those bolts haven't been disturbed before. Wish me luck!

Don't leave your keys inside. Especially if you only have 1 set.

Those prices are reasonable. Most of the Pathy specific wire sets I've seen are around $70-80. I got the cap and rotor for around $40 at Napa, but I think Nissan parts are expensive around here as they were more elsewhere. As for the Bosch plugs, I've had them for probably 8 or 9 months now and they're great. Along with the tune up, I noticed a bit of an improvement on highway mileage, and they seemed to help the "pep" of the engine, but this could just be imaginary or the result of the whole tune-up. If your stock stuff is really tired, I'd bet just about anything would be and improvement and upgrade.

The butterflies are setting in. I've done suspension stuff so far, and it isn't bad at all. I've worked top to bottom, front to back on various things, and I've pulled motors and done most anything on various vehicles. But the idea that I'll be separating my truck into 2 parts should be fun. We'll see. At least I have 2 full days, and I only work a short bus ride away if something doesn't go right. Wish me luck, and who knows, I may be back here soon enough for advice. Hopefully this will be practice for one day being able to afford a muscle car worth of a resto.

Yup, but that humidity! And the sunshine might get you one day! At least here (in western WA) we only deal with freezing a few times a year, and it seems like sunshine only happens a few more times than that. Good job skrilla, how would you rate the difficulty of install? I'm looking at some A-arms at some point down the line, along with all ball joints and tie rod ends.

Finally, we're looking at a relatively dry and somewhat warm (mid-50's) weekend, so its time to play. Surely there will be numerous questions to follow... And for my next trick...

If and when you do remove it, post here if you want to get rid of it. I'm sure there would be many takers out there judging from past posts.