PathyGig12

Thanks a lot man! Being a visual person, videos are 9000 times easier for me to learn from.

Rain goat, thanks for the link and the parts list! Ill look into it further when I have a second. As for the running boards, you might be on to something. I haven’t found them to take away from clearance too much as it is, and you’re right about the usability. Ideally I’d like to replace them with rock sliders, but those are way down the list of priorities, so I guess they’ll stay until then. I always wondered though, can you use a Hi lift jack on the running boards (not the boards themselves, but where they mount to the body)? And how about the hitch assembly in the back? You could lift off of that right? I’m trying to justify mounting a HiLift jack on my rig so please help me spend money! Ha, At the very least I could use it to help with recovery, but knowing I could lift the truck too would be awesome

Thanks man! I would love to do the job myself but I’m just worried I’d run into a problem that would stretch it past a day and screw me for work. It’s my daily driver so I’m kind of in a tough spot. But I’ll do some research and see if it’s reasonable.

Cool I’ll check those out. The place I am taking the truck is a guy that specializes in Japanese imports, not the dealership. I hope he’ll understand what I’m asking him to do though. I don’t fully understand it myself so it’s kind of hard to explain.

I looked into the service history and confirmed that the power valve screws have not been tightened in the past, so I think that’s going to be my next shop visit You all have convinced me that it’s not worth rolling the dice on this one, so I’ll see about getting into a Nissan mechanic next week to do the work. What’s a fair price do you think?

finally some daylight pictures! I went ahead and sprayed the OE wheels black. Bear in mind I’m a horrible painter, but they are indeed no longer silver. So I count it as a success I loved the look of the black wheels on everyone else’s rigs so I figured I’d like mine better in black as well. Makes the tires look bigger and the truck more aggressive. Next up is probably removing the running boards for more clearance on the sides

Oh believe me, I’ve realized! Ive got way too many wants and way too little money my friend. Current to do list: -Manual hubs -New CVs (one boot is torn but both sides are probably in need of replacing anyway) -New front control arms, tie rod ends, lower ball joints, end links, and steering rack boots -New upstream O2 sensors -Getting the power valve screws tightened -Front Lokka -Bilstein shocks to replace the Gabriel ultras and give me more flex -Hi lift jack, Tow ropes, traction boards - Rock lights and reverse mounted LED bar - rock sliders -coastal off-road front bumper with 10,000lb smitty winch - limiting straps - custom swing out rear gas can carrier (mounted to a custom rear bumper) My wallet is crying. It’s telling me to run away from this forum My family lives in vegas so I’ll be there for thanksgiving. Pray for me fellow pathfinder nuts, if I hit even a minor jackpot I can check quite a few things off the list! Lol

Oh yeah and the alignment is done now. They said it was easily doable with just one bolt per side so I must not have been too far off. Ahhhhhhhhhh..... no camber feels good

As you can see, the camera is a really basic set up. It could be refined in about a million different ways, but what I have right now works for me so I’ll leave it alone. The wiring goes up along the lower trailing arm to the underside of the running board, and then into the crack of the door (reinforced with plastic tubing and tape so it doesn’t get pinched). I also made sure to leave some slack in the wiring so that they don’t tear under flexing and compression. Ignore the clump of tape haha, I was trying to wrap more of the wiring quickly before going to work but it’s falling off already so I’ll have to find a better solution. I was pressed for time on the install, but I’ll revisit it soon. You can also see in the top picture that there’s actually a bit of rake front to back. I’m noticing it more now that I’m taking more pictures from the sides. For some reason it looks more level in person. Anyway, I don't think I mind it.This way I can still load up the back with people and camping gear without sagging

How did you go about taking off the plastic?

I just went with a random one from harbor freight. Couldn’t tell you what it is, but it seems to be good enough to me. It’s red and puts out fires. Rain goat, the fire extinguisher I have came with a plastic hard mount for screwing into a wall, and attaches to the extinguisher with a plastic clip by the neck of the bottle plus a strap around the middle, so I’m considering just screwing the mount into the plastic but I would prefer to use nuts and bolts if I could get behind it. Ideally I’d drill holes into the metal behind the plastic but that’s quite an involved job and I have no idea the layout of what’s under there. It’s hard to tell from those pics what a suitable spot would be

I’ll grab a pic of the camera today for you. Its actually mounted on the sway bar just to the right of the rear diff using zip ties and then coated in some epoxy to keep it from changing angle. Again, not an ideal mount but I warned you guys not to look for perfectionist tendencies in my build lol It hasn’t budged in the last week and I’ve gone over some nasty pot holes

I’ll get to it eventually, money is pretty tight right now so I’m just happy it’s organized back there. I’m planning on more secure cargo solutions in the future. Does anyone know how to get behind the plastic on the left side so that I can bolt the fire extinguisher mount? Or another way it could be done securely?

Today I got the tires mounted and set about organizing / cleaning the interior. I tidied up the back and added an axe and fire extinguisher, plus a small shovel mounted on the rack. Good news is the tires don’t rub except mildly when I’m at full lock in reverse. I’ll see what I can trim to make this go away, but it’s not too bad as it is. My alignment is scheduled for tomorrow at 1, I’m sick of this crazy camber and ready for it to be gone I’ll get some better pics during the day tomorrow. And take measurements. After all the organizing I ran out of daylight. The last pic is the undercarriage monitor.

Yeah I used them, but I’m having trouble getting them to work properly. I’m just going to tell the guys at the alignment shop about the bolts and let them sort it out while they are aligning the front

Well if it ends up causing me problems on trails, I’ll go ahead and get myself a new one. But as it stands, the mirror issue isn’t as bad as you’d think. Your brain can compensate for a lot

I’ll try to take measurements after the tires go on, and get pictures of the camera mounting point. Its surprisingly decent quality for the price, and the wireless makes it convenient. I just had to run wires to the socket under the center console to power the camera and the monitor came with an adapter to plug into the 12 socket in the dash so the install was ridiculously easy. I gave up on trying to tap into the 4Wd light, and besides it’s nice to be able to switch it on whenever I want to. This particular model had the option to overlay lines on the screen but has a feature to turn them off as well, which I personally chose to do. I wish I could have gotten the front facing camera now that I know they exist. Ha, I guess I just jumped on the first one I thought I could make work.

Thanks man! Yeah he definitely knows his stuff, I’ve been peppering him with questions for the past week and getting too many details to know what to do with! lol Ok maybe the tires aren’t THAT bad. But I won’t let another day pass with them on, I’ll tell you that much! Haha, I just need those damn wheel wells filled out, and the extra inch of height will be nice too. Speaking of extra height.... the underbody camera is now able to clearly see both front wheels which is awesome! I’ll be sure to include a pic of the monitor tomorrow. The only weird thing is that it’s mirrored, so the drivers side shows up on the right side of the screen because... backup camera. Not sure if I can change that or if I care to

Thanks for the pics RainGoat, good to know that I already had the spacers. I figured as much, but wasn’t 100% sure Yeah I made sure the shop aligned the strut components properly with the Ls and Rs and notches and whatnot. These incompetent morons could have kill me with how out of whack the geometry would have been, had I used their original configuration. I would have loved to do it myself, and no doubt could have done it faster than they did, but amazon screwed up my order for the new compressor so it got labeled as “undeliverable” and returned to sender. Oh well. I don’t see myself doing this job again. The truck will likely die before this suspension does Im getting some odd clunking going around corners as soon as I turn the wheel , but it’s intermittent and sometimes doesn’t do it. Hawairish suggested that it might be the end links in the front so I’ll give those some extra tightening when I get a chance. I haven’t noticed any topping out yet, nor has the ride been harsh at all. These ACs are fantastic as far as I can tell. The 9447s are even nicer still. I cant tell you how great it is to not be bottoming out on every bump! As far as I can tell the truck is perfectly level, but I’ll confirm that tomorrow with some good side angle pics

Phew that was a long day! Got up at 8, picked up the keys at 9 and had the truck on the lift by 10. Good start. Taking off the struts was way easier that I thought it would be. The bolts took some decent force to crack, but I had all the clearance for the breaker bars that I could ask for, and the lift made it much more comfortable to work on. The hardest part was reaching one of the bolts on the driver side tower, but still not too bad. Total time for disassembly was 2 hours Then I brought them to pepboys for the reassembly with AC coils. First thing the “manager” told me was that it would be a few hours because they were all booked up. I said fair enough, and went back to do the rear coils. Before I left I gave him all the parts and explained what everything was, and he was convinced that I didn’t need to leave the old struts because “you’ve already got the tops right here” (pointing at the strut mounts). Oh lord..... After explaining to him that without the old ones he wouldn’t have upper spring perches, he relented and took everything into the shop. When I got back around 4 to pick them up, I wasn’t surprised when I found they had completely messed up the orientation of the notches and mounts. I had them redo it while I waited, and sure enough the second time was still wrong. I had to rotate the mounts on the counter in front of them, but at least they were done so I was happy. Reinstalling them was pretty much just as easy as taking them out, just a bit of a pain holding them up over my head. The rear coils were extremely simple to put in because of the lift. I just had to disconnect the end links, shocks, and panhard, then lower the axle using the tall jack stand the shop had and the OEM springs popped right out. I only needed to compress the Land Rover springs an inch to be able to seat them, and that was only so that it would be easier to maneuver them between the other components. Even fully uncompressed they had a couple inches of clearance between the tops and the upper perches until I reconnected everything and brought the axle back to normal height, so theoretically I didn’t even need to compress them. Where are the pics of the truck?? I’m just going to tease you guys with these mid-build pics until I can get the tires mounted tomorrow and the alignment done. Im way too embarrassed to post photos of the truck with its 29.5 inch tires lol Before getting the new tires, Im wondering if I should just guesstimate the rubbing areas and pre cut them? If they rub badly I don’t want to be damaging the tires on the way home

Alright so I got the camera and monitor installed and it turned out great in my opinion. I’m easily satisfied, so don’t look for perfectionist tendencies in my build. If it works, it works. That being said, I’m going to wait to post pics until after the lift is done so that I can see where/if I should move the camera mount to get the absolute best angle. I think the extra inches of height should help better clear the catalytic but as it stands right now the view isn’t too bad. As for the flood sensor idea....well it sort of worked. But the contacts to make it trigger were not what I wanted them to be. And it also didn’t trigger in water unless the leads were extremely close, meaning that any bumps would have set it off again and again when driving. It also seemed to go off randomly whenever it wanted to.... I looked at the data sheet for the MOSFET transistor I was using and it seems that I might have reversed the pins even though that’s what the guide said to connect to, so I’ll try it again the other way and see what I get. I’m also using a slightly better/different window alarm than the one in the guide I’m following, so maybe I need to get the one they used. This is the guide https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-build-your-own-flood-sensor/

Yeah I’d like to keep it relatively tame for my first few trails as well. I hear good things about some of the ones by Empire/Idaho springs, but I’d have to look into boulder and see what options they have. Be aware though, there’s a good chance they might be “Prius only”. Either that or they won’t be open for several hundred years on account of all the environmental surveys they’ll have to do to make sure our tires won’t endanger any of the dirt? Sorry can you tell I hate boulder?

The power valve screws did worry me when I initially heard about the issue, but I figure if they haven’t come out after 260K miles, either my truck is not one of the bad ones, or the previous owner had them locktited under warranty years ago when the problem became known. They could also be well and truly baked into position by this point just because of the heat and corrosion over time. Ill see if I can look into the service history and find out whether it was done but it’s not really at the top of my list right now

You mentioned a strut spacer? I’m confused. What spacer are you referring to? If you mean the spacer inside of the mount, can you elaborate? I bought OEM mounts and bearings but have no clue as to the spacer orientation. Pics would be awesome. I’m going off of the SFcreations installation video when it comes to aligning the pieces of the strut

I’m in the Denver area and I should have my rig built by then. Message me if you’re interested in hitting some nearby trails. There’s a few I’ve looked into but I haven’t tried any yet.