nige

yeah that's what it has come down to with me. I'll be working with my neighbor on mine. He's an ex-machinist and understands the concept with the spherical bearings. I'm not sure why he didn't use roller bearings instead. Maybe they aren't as durable as the spherical variation. I showed him my spare bushing set last night and he couldn't believe that Calmini charges so much money to rebuild the arms. I couldn't believe that people are paying Calmini to repair their own mistake and reselling the arm back to another customer, it just seems like a big cash grab to us. I love their steering setup, but they need to listen to their customers, otherwise there will be more of use that tell them to stick it by fixing their problem ourselves.

i called them today about my bushings. They basically told me, they don't make replacement bushing kits, and i have to pay them $250 for a new idler arm assembly and he couldn't tell me if it would last longer. I clean and grease my idler arm at least twice a year (more if i go wheeling) and my bushings lasted about 1 season before they started to make noise. i originally thought it was worn front sway bar bushings, but i removed the sway bar and the noise persisted. when i booted the passenger tire a few times, i could see the arm moving up and down with each kick.

i just found out my bushings are shot and my idler arm is making all sorts of racket over bumps etc. I might try taking the arm apart, rotating the bushings and putting back together again, if that doesn't work, i am going to look into doing the bearing mod that someone outlined in that thread.

*ahem* lol simon beat me to it

i bet your LE seats weight a tonne if they are leather power and heated. you could swap those out with something lighter. The seats in older civic crx's are really nice and fit skinny people well if you can still find a set.

swapping glass for lexan will save you some, but it will probably leak. Iron Locust and the Russians seem to like replacing the rear most windows with pieces of aluminum plate.

awh jeez that sucks you could drill out what's left of the threads and re-tap the hole for a little bit bigger bolt. I have to do that to one of my ARB mounting bolts (stupid captive nuts ) I have gotten in the habit of chasing all the mounting holes for stuff before i screw the bolts back in. it makes such a huge difference you can hand thread most bolts after cleaning up the threads. p.s. where is your front sway bar? or do you like it better without?

i don't have bump stops on my rear end. this is pretty much as far as it will go. I haven't lifted a rear tire very often, let alone stopped for a picture. I suspect my tire will rub on the inside of the frame before the shock bottoms out. If you still have bumpstops, you should be fine. I think trailchaser also ran these shocks. check some of his treads too. i will be trying some tougher stuff this year.

get the 9112's i have the 5112's and they have plenty of travel

nice, would it be out of the question to swap in a wd21 lsd? they are pretty tight out of the box. I guess you might need to switch axle shafts too

oh i understand. your truck is so nice btw. here are a couple comparison shots of my truck. the first one is with the calmini springs, and the second one is with the a/c springs. my torsion bars were saggging and i just reindexed them but i hadn't cranked them up yet

i had 3" calmini coils that were slightly used, and then i but on brand new automotive customizers 3" coils. The AC coils are much stiffer. I think they were 190lbs/sq" and the calmini ones are closer to 170lbs/sq" The AC springs held the rear end up about and inch or so more than the calmini springs did. It also could have been the calmini springs were used and not quite as stiff as they were brand new. At first i thought the AC springs were going to be too stiff, but they have settled down a little bit over the last year. My 33" spare weighs the rear end down a good amount. I am also having a steel rear bumper made and it should level it out even better. Right now it's kinda tow-truckey with no spare and an empty cargo area. Unfortunately, i never got the chance to measure the height of either of those springs before i installed or sold them. You might be able to get calmini and A/C answer those questions for you. I do know that A/C also made a lighter 1.5" lift spring too. I think a couple of folks on here have bought those too, but i never heard much about them. I think the XJ springs come in 3 or 4 different wire thicknesses. 88pathoffroad wrote about them in one rear coil thread. I think it might be in the garage or stickies somewhere.

if you have enough room left, there is a hole in the firewall right by the brake booster. I have run all of my wires through there. I am going to replace all them with one 8 gauge going to a new fuse box inside the cab somewhere. Then you can wire lights and switches up to the fuse box and not have a pile of O ring connectors on your battery's positive lead. But yeah as for the grounding, daveoz is right. the neg batt terminal is the best spot provided it is shiny and free of corrosion. My1path's is a good spot too. just rub down the contact points with steel wool to clean them up and give the connector and bolts a little shot of white lithium grease to keep the corrosion down.

fill out your profile information for starters. that way everyone knows what year and model truck you have and where you live (what type of wheeling you will be doing, sand, rocks, mud etc.) 'Slick' has a trail master lift on her truck. Search for her posts and start reading. As far as i know, the kit should be interchangeable between the pickup and pathfinder of similar years. The only difference is the rear suspension (leafs for the pu, coils for the pathfinder)

24 hrs straight from kitchener to sarasota florida. i think it's close to 2400kms for the CNTC adventure weekend, i will put on close to 1500kms, but that's over a few days

imo they look goofy like something out of the lund catalogue that an oldballs will install on his 2wd longbox dodge ram along with those fake vent things that go around the back of the cab on top of the box

if you are going to wheel it, i would recommend you get an xe or se with an open rear differential (non-lsd) it is much easier and cheaper to install a differential locker on trucks with and open differential. as kingman says, most of the trucks with rear disc brakes also have an LSD, but you can look for the sticker or do the tire spin thing to find out for sure. The LSD works fine for gravel/snow/wet muddy roads, but as soon as you lift a tire off the ground, it doesn't work very well. I was lucky and found a detroit locker that replaces my LSD. I can't wait to install it and try it out on the trail.

a wire wheel attachment for your drill or angle grinder makes short work of the loose stuff. Be careful with the sanding discs, some of them can take off quite a bit of material very quickly. If you can borrow or rent a sandblaster, they work the best. I used one to clean up behind my fender flare and the repair lasted for 4 years before the rust started to peek through the paint again.

the 968's are great lights. I have a similar model to the 900xsd. I would choose the 900's because they are semi-waterproof and the body is made of steel. You save money on the 968's because they use a polymer to make the housings from, but i bet they are as bright as the 900's. you can also swap bulbs with most of these lights. I would like a nice set of fog lights to compliment my driving lights.

don't worry, keep checking the classifieds around your city. Check the local jeep message board classifieds too. there are usually tonnes of sets of tires that pop up for sale. especially around this time of the year. I shopped around for months before a fellow CNTC member offered me his old set of 33x12.5x15" procomp mt's. I got them for $400 and sold the jeep wheels they came with for $100. kijiji and craigslist are also good places to look. if you're really stuck, you can always post up a WTB (want to buy) ad on forums. you never know if someone is thinking of selling theirs 16.5 is such a rare wheel diameter. you have tonnes of choices of tires in 15 and 16" sizes. I think i am going to go with 16" wheels next time I buy a set. It seems like there are more choices for sizing, and i never really air my 33's down super low either (an advantage of 15" wheels) I like Simon's 285/75r16 tires. they are a little taller and narrower than 33x12.5x15's. You usually have more choice of 16" wheels to pick from.

yeah, the speakers do dip down a bit. i meaured 31" from the carpet to the speaker guard

were yours mounted on wheels?

2 in the back seat? you should be alright. You might have to make one ride shotgun with you. Bring some of those rachet straps just incase you need to leave the trunk open

4 31's barely fit in the back of my pathfinder. i think i may have had 3 33's in the back and one of them on the roof too. i can't remember. they are big tires though. you could probably fit 2 in the trunk if you leave the lid open and one in the back seat. you could take the front passanger seat out of the car to fit the last one in

might be your water pump too.