mjotrainbrain

Well, mine is my first car. I actually kind of didn't like it at first (what's this thing, Japanese? IFS? Ew!) (I wanted a Jeep or Ford truck really bad) but now that I have it, I love it! It has completely gotten me into Japanese automobiles, and am even interested in JDM cars and stuff now, something I had always frowned upon. In my opinion, many of us got into it on accident, and now we have a sickness; but a good one.

Old Glory ('Merica!)

Worm hole

Left the QX4 at the local Infiniti dealer for the last 3 days (the loaner car was nice!) to see if they could figure out what was wrong. The ICC issue turned out to be the sensor in the grill, which they wanted $3000 for (yes, I got the right number of zeros there! ) and they even recommended not fixing it; I guess I'll keep my eye on local junkyards. They could not figure out the ABS issue. As far as they can tell everything should work perfectly, and the best guess they had was that it doesn't work because the vehicle is not level due to the lift I have on it (so are they suggesting that if you drive down a hill the ABS won't work? I call BS), so basically that is still a mystery. I guess I'll pretend that's not a problem and just drive accordingly. This leaves no other things that are broken, so I can focus on upgrades again!

Quarter dollar

I had to remove mine once before (I was replacing the sway links; needed to bring the while thing inside and use a hacksaw) and it came off just fine. In fact, mine's a Michigan vehicle and is a lot rustier. I would think you should be fine, but of course there is always a risk.

That thing looks awesome! Great selection of mods, they all came together really nicely. Also, welcome to NPORA!

No hope

Thank you for finding that! It will be very useful for me someday, probably not too long from now. I actually scored a navigation system like the one my QX4 came with that has all of its buttons intact, so I'm going to try that for now, at least however long these buttons last. I have no idea if it works though, since I got it out of a junkyard Q that somebody had torn the dash out of, so this was just sitting in the passenger seat...I'll have to figure it out this weekend.

Steering wheel

Excellent, thank you! And good luck with your other light mods, hopefully they go a little more smoothly for ya!

Wow, that's bright! I think I'm going to have to try this mod, as the stock OEM lights are so dim they might as well not be there...Do these light the interior well? They look like they do from the picture, I just want to make sure they look just as good in person.

Bump It would be nice to some more members in Michigan!

Russian Roulette

4x4parts.com sells front, mid, rear, and differential skidplates. They are even available in cost saving packages. http://www.4x4parts.com/c-1048936-armor-skid-plates-4x4parts-skid-plates-pathfinder.html

Holy smokes, this is awesome! Are there any pictures of the whole truck? Any updates? Crazy build, it looks amazing man!

If you are really concerned about the bolts breaking off, could you just leave the bracket on and remove the upper control arms using a couple of open ended wrenches? It would take a really long time and be a PITA, but it would avoid the possibility of this issue... Maybe if you had a picture of how rusty the area is so we can get a better idea of how much of a risk it would be?

Tomorrow I'm going to a junkyard to pick up a new spoiler, as somehow my QX4's PO managed to break it in half, and I figure it's about time I get around to fixing it. While I'm there, I'm thinking about grabbing the climate control system out of a Pathfinder or QX4 if one has a system I like. My QX4 has the touch screen mess, complete with broken buttons, making it impossible to turn off and generally difficult to use - very annoying! If I pulled a system out of another truck, could I easily swap it in? Will I also need to grab any wiring? For reference, this is what I hope to put in:

Shouldn't the 2015 TOTY winner be recognized on the site's homepage? There is a TOTY from 2014 and some TOTM from 2016, but no evidence of 2015 unless you go into the forums! I just thought that it would be nice to recognize Pav.

Wow, that's a lot of work! Good for you to have that kind of ambition. When you're putting it all back together, make sure the CVs didn't come apart or anything while sitting around not attached to anything. The only time I've had issues with mine is shortly after messing with suspension, so make sure they're OK. Double check them once everything's back together. Good luck!

What size did you end up getting? Whatever it is, it looks good!

Here's some pics from the outing last weekend. It was an event called Wheelin' for a Cure that essentially was meant to be a fun and creative way to raise money for a camp called Special Days Camp for kids with cancer. If you'd like to read more about it, I did a pretty lengthy bit of typing on one of my Instagram posts about it (find me @mjotrainbrain). Now on to the pics! Staging with the first group to head out. Think the RC (my other hobby) can keep up? Another picture of the group before heading out. There were a ton of vehicles in attendance! I had the only Infiniti and there was only 2 Toyotas and a Hummer, everything else was a Jeep! Being unique is nice. The trails were overall pretty easy (used 2wd all day) but it was still a lot of fun and there were a couple spots where the suspension got a work out due to lots of deep holes. There were also a couple long sandy hill climbs that involved some wheel-spin, but not enough to justify 4wd. Besides, spinning all the way up a hill can be fun! This was our lunch stop. All of the people parked on that side from the Tacoma at the far end (can't really see it) through my Infiniti plus a red JKU parked elsewhere were in group 1. I was a little out-trucked, but I kept up just fine, and in extreme comfort by comparison!

No problem! Have fun, and remember; no 4wd when unlocked, lol!

So I've had the OME Medium Duty coils installed for about 3 weeks now, and they've been great! They ride similar to stock, however they do this while also making the rear end feel tighter (which is excellent!). Also, I now have about 3.5 inches over stock in the rear, meaning that these coils are about 1.5 inches taller than the old ones and the same in rake, exactly what I expected! With this much rear lift, should I be looking into a panhard drop bracket? At this point I'm going to stop messing with the suspension, as I actually quite like where it's at. Of course some day I'm going to have to dig back in to do the front coils and struts and the rear shocks, but it's fine...for now. I hope to have one of my dad's co-workers help me fab a skidplate for the front end fairly soon. I am also hoping to be able to make some kind of a custom missing link, maybe even this upcoming weekend. I was just re-reading CDN_S4's build thread and was inspired when I saw his. It appears to be exactly 1.75 inches wide and a smear under 2 feet long, so that's convenient. Will just a flat piece of steel with a hole at either end work fine, or should I use square tube? How thick do I want, 1/4"? Material suggestions? Once that's been done, I don't know what I want to do next! Here's the options I'm currently considering: Warn hubs (winter is coming up soon, so they'll probably stay locked for the next 6 months, so maybe wait 'til spring?) Custom front bumper (a little pricey, but might be worth looking into, especially since the side that's taken the most hits has lost a lot of mounting hardware) Junkyard stuff (replace sat nav with basic climate control system, maybe rear tire carrier, WD21 transfer skidplate and whatever other cool stuff I can find) CB radio (but which one?) Looks like I have another question packed post, sorry guys! I just want to make sure I'm making the right decisions with my R50.

This is actually a pretty cool sounding idea, but couldn't it increase the possibility of water getting in? Where I live we don't have rocks, so mud and water are a common terrain and I would hate to do this if I'm just going to water-log my engine the first time I go out...