shift220

Looks not bad. Is that weld-through primer on the steel?

A little more on the technical side, I got an alignment done and had a set of camber bolts ready for the guys to use (it looked off). Turns out the spacers keep the camber dead on (even with the addition 1/2" of lift). The toe was way out but that was before the lift as the SFD doesn't change anything with the toe. As for the rear end, it is offset by about 1" from the front wheels (towards the drivers side as expected). In the next couple days I'll make up a drop bracket

Ok ok so the weather finally cooperated today and I was able to get the Pathfinder washed. First off, here are the spring spacers I fabricated. They are nothing pretty but seem to do the job. I didn't have much time and had to get this thing back on the road. They only got a quick shot of some black paint. I didn't get any pictures of how I attached them but I basically drilled a 1/2" hole in the center of the spacer and bolted them down to a nut I welded below on the axle spring perch. Very simple and keeps them in place. Here you can also see the bottom of the shock I used. Again, its from the rear of a F350 Superduty 2wd. The ride is excellent and doesn't seem much if any rougher then stock. The shock was a direct bolt-on with some extra washers on the axle side. And finally...

Yea I know Fairview! My mother grew up there and her parents still have a place up there (farmers). Only really been up there when it was summer but I know it gets damn cold in the winter. I love the area though, very peaceful. I worked on Hine's Creek bridge during the summer a couple years ago and that was one of the best times I ever had working. Much better then working over the Yellowhead. Anyway thanks for the tips. I might look into a battery warmer, it seems like the next logical thing after the block heater. Hopefully I can get the Pathfinder started up and into the garage today!

So after finishing my SFD, I went for a drive with the new M/Ts and noticed a pretty bad vibration. I thought I would take off the rims and clean off the grimy rust build-up on the hubs (should have in the first place). Pop off the first rim in the front and I see grease all over everything. Now this was after literally a 2 minute drive with the lift in place. Rotate the CV shaft and sure enough, the boot has a tiny 1/4" split and was flinging grease everywhere. Being original CV shafts, I opted to replace it with a lifetime warranty one from Napa (not a reman, got a discount). The new shaft looked very well made and tough. I felt it was worth it. This was my first time replacing a CV and it went pretty good. Ok so this is the first real problem I've had with my Pathfinder since I got it. Its been pretty much perfect so far. Now for the last week its been consistently -30 Celsius during the day and dropping to -40c (-40f) some nights. Yesterday I plugged in my Pathfinder like I have been for the last two years. Go to remote start it later in the night and nothing. I hear it slowly cranking but no fire. Then I notice I have no power in the garage. Check the breakers and yup one tripped. Get out my fancier extension cord with a light and try plugging in the R50 again. Plug sparks and the light goes out. Breaker tripped again. So then I tried another circuit and that one trips too. Alright so this sucks. No going anywhere tonight. The next day I did some investigating (yes, still -30c and in my driveway). Cord reads open circuit (that shouldn't blow the breaker?), so I snipped the cord loose, crawled under the newly lifted Pathfinder (one advantage), reached up and yanked the cord off the block. That end is slightly melted and corroded. Great. Impossible to actually see the block heater on the block (unibody disadvantage). So what the heck? I pulled out the battery and i'm going to charge in the garage overnight. Its still the original 96 battery. Great during the summer, but might be a little weak for the -40c days. So in summary, I want to drive my lifted Pathfinder but I can't cause its frozen on my driveway.

Thanks! I'm glad to share it with everyone. I went for a quick drive yesterday and it seemed good. Our roads are all snow covered and I didn't go to far. The shocks were on the expensive side but have better valving that should help hide the application difference. Hmm I wonder which way they mount on the F350's Its going in for an alignment tomorrow with some cam bolts to adjust the camber back to spec. The report should tell me how close to stock the spacers kept it. Do the F250 springs have the same ID and OD as ours? I'd imagine the ride would suck after buts it worth a look to find out for sure.

Well.. I did make them 3.75" because the back end was 1/4" higher then the front stock so yup that was my plan. Now I have everything together and on the ground and the back end is 1/4" lower then the front . Probably due to new struts on the front. I'm sure it'll settle a little. I'll try to post picture soon. The spacers seemed to work ok, but they make weird angles with the springs. It looks good with the weight on them though. Time will tell! For everyone's information, I went with Max-Control shocks by Gabriel on the back. They measure 28" extended and 16" (i think) collapsed. The ones that fit are off the rear of a 99-04 F350 Superduty 2WD.

My best advice would be to look at old Nissans in the junkyard and see what parts you can use off the steering. A lot of the splined shafts are the same between years/models. The main thing is to maximize the distance between the u-joint and i'm pretty sure you can only use two total without any sort of "awkwardness" in the linkage. The back is going to be interesting. I just got a nice SS braided line made up today with the tee on one end. Ran me about $60 parts/labour. I'm going to cut and weld in pieces to extend the swaybar links. And my plan right now is to just make some 4" spacers for the springs. They will be pretty simple and I have plenty of scrap metal to throw together for them. Ideally we could find some spring in the junkyard that would be a direct swap but I'll save that for another time!

Thanks! You got it. That 8.5 degrees is just both angles combined to make one cut. Making two cuts should bring you to the same point but it would be difficult to line up and cut properly. But the cuts on the round tube are independent of the vehicle. It's how you weld the flanges on that determines the orientation (which you are correct, 45 degrees).

Use lock washers, regular washers and loctite. The studs are pressed/rusted in and I doubt you'll be able to hammer it out on the vehicle. Try to grind/cut away the head on the other side and you might be able to punch it out. As for the hanger, i'm not quite sure off the top of my head.

Haha yea it does need a wash. Not anytime to soon since it just dropped to -30c here... As for the strut spacers, I got them close enough that the strut mount took up the little bit of difference (it is made to flex a little). If I made them exactly 3.5" (the amount of lift/drop of the SF), they would probably have been perfect. But anyway, both ends of the pipe are cut at the desired angle and then the flanges are welded on both at the same orientation. The angle is simple. Since the 12 degrees and 5 degrees are perpendicular or 90 degrees to each other, you can simply take the average. (12+5)/2 = 8.5 degrees. I went with closer to 9 degrees. I will post of pictures of the template files I made with Autocad that I used to line everything up. Basically, the drivers side spacers will look like the strut is getting pushed back to the rear pass corner (pass side spacer drops it back to driver rear corner). Now if that doesn't confuse you, actually figuring out the orientations in real life is a brain twister.

Nope everything else is stock except for the KYB struts

So I had a problem with the first set of strut spacers I made up. I only accounted for the 12 degree strut angle going left to right and had a problem with the strut not seating very flat on the body mount. I realized right away that I needed to account for the 5 degree front to back angle as well. So I made the ones shown and the funny thing is that I forgot to account for the 1/4" thicknesses of the flanges... can't really complain about another 1/2" of lift though

So after some testing, I decided I didn't like the way I did the steering linkage the first way. 2 u-joints and a rubber pad made for an awkward looking linkage. So I ditched the rubber pad and extended the length between the u-joint to lessen the angle they run at. This resulted in a much smoother feel. Here are the strut spacers (typical weld show-off pic) and back on the ground with the weight on the front wheels! 32" BFG M/T's on 17x9 MKW wheels

So at the junkyard I went to the first logical vehicle I could find... a Nissan. It was an early 90s hardbody truck although i'm sure the WD21 pathfinders are exactly the same. I started tearing into the steering linkage and got this off the truck. It is basically the whole steering column with this little beauty on the end The joint is basically an exact match for the previous u-joint I have posted up. The only modification needed was to grind off the little key on the stock u-joint so it would slide into the new one. Then I measured the distance I needed and cut the "new" joint to length. This was then TIG welded onto a small plate I fab'ed up. I welded it very carefully so the u-joint did not get very hot. And assembled!

Well I took a trip to the local pick n pull and found the perfect steering extension. It requires minimal fabrication and still allows you to go back to stock if needed. Easy to find too! Ill post pics later tonight.

Nope, i'm not welding anything. The blocks sit very snug around the bolts so there's no where for the blocks to move.

Just to let everyone know, I went with 3.5" high blocks. Now I'm just waiting on some new OEM strut bearings and steering... I never really thought about it but that one picture I had of the SFD where the person used a block to space the steering u-joint, was a left-hand drive. I have a feeling that the steering angles might have been a little different and they were able to squeeze in a block. Right now I'm thinking of doubling up with this stock U-joint, that is if I can find another.

Here's some pictures up to date Getting the rear end up high Supporting the front with 12 ton jackstands to get the height I need to drop the subframe Strut removed and the knuckle supported with wire to avoid stretching any cables. I was extra careful when I removed the nut holding the sway bar endlink on. I stripped out one of those before and new endlinks are not cheap. Spacer blocks fresh out of the oven (powder coated). I will post more on those later but I measured, cut and drilled these before I had everything apart and they were basically dead on. Only one modification and that was slicing the corner off the rear blocks to clear the frame when it bends downward. All the blocks in place and torqued. Subframe bolted to rear blocks Front Blocks and engine blocks

This is my DD too... The passenger side engine mount was a breeze. As for the driver's side one, I had to drop the diff to get even close. I left the cv axles and driveshaft attached and let it sit down on the subframe. It's to bad every dam 17mm and 19mm bolt on this thing needs to be literally cracked loose with a snipe on a snipe. Little heat helps too.

So this afternoon I started the tear down. Its now jacked up high in the air with everything torn apart. Blocks have been fitted and I'll powder coat them tomorrow morning. All that's left is to see if the strut spacers will work, figure out the steering spacer and reassembly! Pics to come very soon.

I say use what comes off the headers. 2 or 2.25" will be good either way. This sounds like a great project and something I would like to do also. Thanks for being the guinea pig! Any way you could get a baseline on a dyno? Then after the exhaust get another at the same place? It would be really handy to compare before and after.

80 lbs is nothing and 5-6 inches is a lot of travel left. Nothing to worry about.

I only go to Napa for the very basic things. The guys at my store all hate it when I don't have a specific application for them. It must annoy them. Other guys in the Edmonton region, Dash auto distributors is pretty good and have access to more stock. Less automotive specific I go to Greggs Distributors which have just about everything a guy could want. Princess Auto for the cheap stuff or a seldomly used (or hard to find) tool. And Canadian Tire also for the very basic things, which by the way, is basically Parts Source.

My book tells me ANSI 4063 alloy steel. I can give you the specs if you need them