HankG

I have no idea what this says.

I don't condone the Darwin awards and think laughing at them is fairly low, but as a statement of fact, that guy is certainly living in the appropriate area.

Although I guess a 10% cut in pay is better than the 20,000 getting laid off, especially since it's not like they'll be hurting for cash, it's still good to see. I just wish my college would do something similar. Cutting out lots of classes, raising tuition, and paying lower scale teachers less while all the higher ups aren't being touched or are even getting paid more. I especially hate that our worthless president who has made countless bad decisions and has gotten the school into a decent bit of trouble got a 10% raise not long ago, so he's now making almost $300,000 a year to do nothing but sit in his office and fskc up.

I don't have the lsd so I can't speak from experience, but from what I've read, the wd21 lsd (which you are probably thinking of) is significantly better than the r50 lsd.

All that's there AFAIK is the dump, a body shop, and the trailer park across the street. Maybe the body shop used to be the place that you are thinking of?

I can't remember there ever being a wrecker in McKinleyville; it must have been quite a while ago, or at least before my interests changed and I would have noticed it. The one I went to was John's just before you hit Eureka.

Depends on where you live. Here, there's only one place to get used parts and it's a complete ripoff. When I needed a new fan clutch, the price the guy quoted for me to go pull it myself was higher than the cost of getting one new from Kragen. Haven't gone back there since.

Do you have any pics of the leather things you've made? That sounds really cool, especially the scabbards. Do you collect swords/blades as well or just make the scabbards for fun?

Just caught the new page/bookmark icon. Threw me off for a second, but looks good.

I'm sure you're right. However, my point was not about what the vehicles could do, but rather what the drivers of those vehicles would do.

I've never understood the craze with putting big engines in station wagons and SUVs. It doesn't matter if they have 100 horsepower or 500, they'll still accelerate like they're driving a Geo Metro in limp mode and cruise the freeway at 45. They might as well just spend some time ; same result but much cheaper.

This seems more like an endorsement than a warning. Those numbers would mean it'd take less than half a year (figuring 15k a year average) for the hubs to pay for themselves, and by the end of the year you'd have saved more than $150, and after that you'd be saving $360 every year. Just as an example, if you had put the hubs on when you first got your r50, they would have more than paid for one of your lockers. While gas costs may make that number lower (or higher), I think manual hubs should be put on every r50 immediately after purchase even if the vehicle is never modded otherwise or never goes off-road. It just makes financial sense.

Lol, my bump stops have been sitting in the coils like that since I got it. It was one of the first things I wanted to fix, but I never really got around to it, and they're still doing their job so /shrug.

Those will fit great.

I got a 1.5-2 mpg increase after installing mine.

It depends on what you are trying to do. To be clear, since gearing can be a bit confusing, the numerically smaller a gear is, the higher its ratio is. The numerically larger a gear is, the lower its ratio. Now, if you want better gas mileage, a numerically smaller gear ratio is desirable. If you want to off-road, numerically larger gears are desirable. This is why every rock crawler out there upgrades to a numerically larger gear ratio and why I hate my brother for having 5.89 gears stock. However, I don't think explaining this to him will help. Honestly, I think your best bet is to bite the bullet and just ask him out on a date already.

Pathfinders have one of the best stock gearings out there (first and second gen anyways; I think the current gen has more standard 3.x gears). Really, the r50 just doesn't scream off-road vehicle when you look at it. You can mod it so it looks meaner, leave it dirty, and slap on some campy bumper-stickers, but it still doesn't have the innate appearance of off-road capability that a Cherokee has. While everyone who has ever tried off-roading an r50, or watched someone else do it, knows that they are extremely capable, you probably won't convince anyone without showing them. As has been said earlier, go mudding together, make sure there isn't a large discrepancy like MTs vs street treads, leave his ass stuck in the mud you just drove through, and go home happy. Or, stop pining for the acceptance of some guys who obviously don't know anything about off-roading except that Cherokees come with big 'increased traction' Jeep stickers and Pathfinders don't.

The torque wrench is more of a precision tool. Its use isn't putting out a huge amount of force, but rather letting you know when you reach a certain amount of torque so that you can tighten things correctly. It doesn't give you any more torque than a breaker bar of the same length. The comments are because ya basically wasted two potentially expensive, precision tools for no gain at all. I can't give you any advice for getting it loose, but next time, leave the torque wrenches for putting it back together.

I don't have a top 10, but Radar Love immediately popped up as my favorite.

Wrong. The corporate leaders are not the ones that need some sense knocked into them. The consumers who will pay the extra money for an identical product with a different brand name slapped on it are.

Well for stock conditions, tire size, gear ratio, and IFS all give the Pathfinder the edge.

Am I missing something?

Are you sure about this GG? I could have sworn my r50 is 500-700 heavier than a Cherokee. I have to disagree about most of what you said. This is of course from the experience of only one Cherokee which isn't even mine, so take it with a grain of salt, however I've noticed about the opposite that you have. My brother's Cherokee gets worse mileage than my r50, has required huge amounts of time and money for repairs and is currently sitting non-running waiting for an alternator, and has a transmission that is going to die at any time. I had originally wanted a Cherokee. If the Pathfinder hadn't fallen into my hands so conveniently, I would probably be over on a Jeep forum instead of here. But after all the problems my brother has had and how obviously jealous he is of my r50, I am very glad there weren't any cheap Cherokees on craigslist at the time.

My opinion is summed up by the fact that when my brothers and I go off-roading, my older brother rides with either me or my younger brother because his Cherokee can't handle what my Pathfinder can. He bought it because he wanted a good off-road vehicle, but after seeing my Pathfinder and realizing he'd have to mod his Cherokee to do what I can do stock, he's pretty much given up on it. A Cherokee can be modded a lot easier than an r50, but stock, I'd take the Pathfinder any day.

First time snow wheeling.