mjotrainbrain

Well, this update isn't all happy and cheery-there is some bad news. However, there is also some fun stuff, so I'm going to cover that first. I have one day left of school, so I got together with a couple of friends to ride bikes. One thing led to another, and before we knew it we were offroad. (Yes, we did actually ride bikes; about 45 minutes. Lots of fun there!) Here are some pics. The other truck is my friend's new-to-him 2006 4Runner. So that's all of the happy fun stuff. On the way home, I heard a scraping noise. Turned out it was this clip that had come disconnected...meaning it was no longer clamping the outside passenger CV boot on! Of course, this was the mess it had left by the time I made it home! I guess this is another thing to have to fix this weekend. It should be repairable with just some new grease and a new clip; less than $15, so I guess that's good. My theory as to why this happened is this: over the past few months, I had noticed some strange substance splattered onto the passenger side of the QX4. I just assumed it was some kind of nasty road stuff, but it continually returned. I hadn't thought anything of it until now. I think that the boot was already leaking, and when I was moving everything around during the installation of the lift, it just got make worse, and when I put the truck in 4wd and pushed power through the driveshaft, it popped off. That's just my theory though. Whatever happened, the fact is that it needs fixing.

From what I have heard (and seen in a couple of threads) 31s fit no problem, 32s it depends on the particular tire and your wheels, 33s (which I've only seen fit once before, don't remember where any more) will fit if you're willing to hack up or altogether remove your wheel wells and do some fender trimming. Personally, I'm planning on getting 32s once I can afford them.

hawairish, your points are very valid and I think I am certainly leaning more towards leaving it on. On road handling is very important for something that spends 90%+ of its life on pavement. And as you mentioned, articulation from the rear axle seems plenty adequate even with the sway bar in place.

Just to keep y'all updated, here's what's going on: I am planning to install the back half of the lift this Saturday, the 11th. That's a good thing, since I just cut my head on the trunk. 6 foot 3 problems I guess. The Cali-lean is kind of annoying, as is the awful alignment. I can't wait to have those both fixed up!

Hmm, I hadn't considered the issue of 'emergency scenarios'. I had just been thinking about how the truck would handle under normal driving conditions. I think just because of the occasional emergency, it would be nice to have the swaybar in place.

That's what we were thinking when we did the front first. We figured it would be best to get the hard/time consuming part out of the way first. Thanks for the kind words everyone!

Haha, I guess that makes the decision easy! Does it really make no noticeable difference? I'm just a little cautious about removing the rear swaybar because the highways near my house have a couple of nasty S-curves. I could always just take it a little slower I suppose... I guess I'll just decide once it's all apart.

pepperjack26, thanks for those instructions! That's more or less how I was planning to do it, but I had forgotten about the panhard bar. Also, thanks for the warning about brake lines-those would be a disaster if they broke! I'm still torn on whether or not I want to remove my rear swaybar. I intentionally left the front because at full extension the CVs bind and I don't want that to happen while flexing on a big obstacle. The rear on the other hand will probably just be determined based upon how hard it is to remove.

This is how she sits with only the front half of the lift installed. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to be driving around with some minor Cali-lean for the next few days.

Well, lift things started happening yesterday! Seeing as this is the first major wrenching I've ever done, I had both my dad and an experienced mechanic with me to help get tough bolts loose (I need to work out apparently ) and provide instruction. Also, we were able to drive over to the mechanic's shop that he work at to use their wall-mounted strut compressor. Somehow just the front took almost 5 hours, so we called it a night at 9:00. Still not sure when I'll have a chance to do the rear so the lift can be finished-hopefully soon! Regretfully, this is the only picture I've gotten so far. The hardest part for this part was wrestling the struts into/out of position without causing damage to the brake lines, CV boots, etc. It was awfully cramped near the bottom! It looks like the sun is starting to come out (it was storming this morning) so I'll go try to get some pictures of how the truck looks with half of a lift.

New tires look good! What size are they?

It depends on the condition of your original parts. If the shocks and struts need replacing, then I say do that. If you're just looking for a way to spend money on the truck, I would get upgraded things such as the Warn hubs.

Looks like fun! Glad to see someone else got in the mud over the holiday.

I agree with Enjoi408, I'm surprised no one else commented! That's a nice looking Pathy you've got. Is the brush guard the stock one? Where did you get yours?

I like the 4x4 badge! It fits in really well. I'm going to have to see if I can find one for my R50 now.

The request for lots of pictures has been noted; I'll do the best I can! The front might be a little harder to get pictures of, as I may need to take it to a shop so the coils can be compressed. Memorial Day weekend couldn't work out better, because now I have 3 days in case something goes wrong!

Honestly, I would fix it. If it doesn't last the year you want it to, then what? I'd prefer to be safe then sorry. Plus, it will resell for a lot more if it's not (at least not as obviously) on its last legs.

Kudos to fleurys for the fast shipping! My lift spacers and stickers have arrived and look great, can't wait to install them this weekend!

Yeah, that's my biggest problem with black. It's either gotta be squeaky clean or muddy, and I don't like to leave mud for too long! Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

Thanks for helping to clear this up guys! I had the knowledge about 4 wheel drive and Ackerman steering and whatnot, but for some reason my mind got a little too excited and convinced myself that I had a front locker. Would have been cool if I did, but anyways, thank you to all of you for helping me to clear up this issue. I guess that's one more thing to add to the ever-growing list of future upgrades!

So is the difficulty when turning on pavement due to the center diff being locked? My parents never owned 4x4s and this is my first one, so I'm still inexperienced with what they're like in the real world.

Nice looking Pathfinder! They sure do look good in black. I'm about to get Fleury's lift, so I'll let you know how that goes.

I know it has locking hubs, and I am referring to the differential. I can't find anything anywhere that would suggest that it has them either, but from experience using it (both in the dirt and on dry pavement) I feel quite certain that the front differential locks when I engage 4HI or 4LO. Perhaps the PO modified it? I can't imagine that they did though, as it seems as if they had never taken it offroading, let alone hard enough to justify a upgrading to a locker.

Yeah, I'm going to have to do something about the spring eventually, especially considering a tow a trailer fairly frequently. I just went this route because it was a cheap way to get the job done, and I can't afford a full set of coils at the moment. It's funny how it looks kind of blue in the pictures, but it's actually black!

I'm not good with names, so don't count on any ideas from me! Gear swap will be quite the job. You should post pics of the transformation, even if it's 'just' swapping parts over.