jyeager

Yes, POR15 is incredible. Paint it on right over rust. Totally encapsulates it forever. If you carefully apply it and the rust is contained to behind the flares, then you can put the flares back on afterwards without the need for any other cosmetic cleanup.

13 year factory warranty? That's news to me! 3000 at 70 seems high to me, but it may have been purchased with towing gears. I do not have a 5-speed, so I can't give you what you want. Sorry. Hopefully someone else will pipe in. So what size tires do you have? listing that in your post might help. Also look up the axle code on the door sticker and list that too.

That's a bargain with a completely seized engine!

Some people have built their own using steel, aluminum and HPLE (did I get that acronym right?) I'm interested in knowing what thickness of each material is sufficient, without being thicker than necessary and when it's all said and done, what the relative costs of each approach are. All the basic info that I need to make the best choice for my application too.

That would be amazing!

Good job! Keep us posted on what kind of skid plate solution you come up with....I'm expecting you to build your own.

FWIW, the head gasket sealers don't often work well, but my son's blazer has a blown head gasket and it has been running well for 2 years now with the sealer. Probably one of the rare success stories for the stuff.

There is nothing but the ARB for the rear, and I'm not sure you can use it in your LSD carrier. You might have to get an open diff carrier to install the ARB in to for your car. But what most people do is they tweak their LSD to a higher breakaway torque in the 200-300 range giving great rear traction. And most people use the Lokka for the front. Then you're pretty much golden.

Hawairish, can you confirm for me what I stated above is correct? ie. there is no locker available for my '97 pathfinder except for the ARB? Or Precise1? If there is a Powertrax option, I would probably get that. If not, then I will hunt down an LSD and reshim it.

Not unless you need a gear change. You can simply remove your LSD and reassemble it with the shims stacked differently to get a tighter break-away torque...thereby giving you a better performing LSD that behaves closer to the way an locker would. In my case, I do not have an LSD and would need to swap the center chunk from a donor with LSD....if the gearing matches my current truck, nothing else need be done. But when I do make the change I want different gearing, so I will also need the matching from diff from the donor truck.

So you ended up getting something like this? http://www.diverssupplyinc.net/browse.cfm/4,6839.html That would connect hose to the JIC fitting in your radiator. Anything unusual at the transmission end?

That looks like an AN fitting in your radiator. That's actually a great fitting if you want to use all AN fittings to plumb it up.

What year is your truck? As far as I can tell, there are lunchbox lockers available if your rear end is NOT an LSD rear AND you have the 31 spline axles (I think that the R50s have 33 splines or there was a change-over during the R50 model run). If you have 33 spline axles, it seems as though an ARB air locker (or a factory LSD) are your only options for the rear. For the front, you can get a Lokka locker (lunchbox style locker). I actually have one of these on order at the moment. I'm hoping that someone that is certain about these details will drop in and either confirm or deny what I've said. I would like a Powertrax or similar locker for my rear but am afraid it's not available for my '97.

I got one for mine from a salvage yard selling on e-bay. Didn't use part numbers, just vehicle description.

Summit sells 15x8 with 3.75bs for about $50 each. And free shipping.

It looks like 4 top, 4 bottom--so 8 bolts total.

hawairish, I understand what you are explaining. Thanks. I am guessing that it is true that rubber bushings could hide this issue quite a bit because they might allow enough twisting at the 4 control arms to let the right end of the axle travel that purple arc. (and probably thereby shortening their lifespan a lot) But dropping the PB bracket is definitely always the best thing to do (I installed my drop right off the bat).

With your poly bushings, the lack of articulation could be from the triangulation that takes place between the upper and lower control arms. Probably has nothing to do with the Panhard bar. The PB allows unhindered travel in the direction of articulation, doesn't it?

On an old worn setup, it can be hard to get the drums off as the pads will have worn a channel inside the drum creating a lip. Hence hawairish mentioning the sledge hammer. Not sure about our trucks, but most drum systems have a star adjuster to continually take up slack between the shoes and drum. You have a slot in the backing plate you can stick a 'spoon' or flat head screw driver in to and back off the adjuster to pull the shoes away from the drum and thereby let the drum pull off. But I'm never sure which way is looser and which is tighter...big pain sometimes. But I have done a full drum rebuild, including all springs and miscellaneous parts without any prior experience. Key to my success was leaving one side intact to refer to as I put things back together on the other side. There is a drum brake tool you might want to buy for a few bucks at the autoparts store that helps in mounting the springs. Not sure how easy that would be without the tool. New drums about $50 each...steal has gotten expensive. But the rest of the hardware is really inexpensive IMO. And the bottle that hawairish described works out great. That way when pumping the pedal, air doesn't get drawn back in to the brakes. Just start with a little brake fluid in the bottom of the bottle, covering the end of the hose. The bleeder can stay open while the brakes are pumped a couple dozen times (with someone watching the level in the master cylinder to keep it from running dry).

Ah, but isn't the fiancé back yet???

I'll bet that will work. Probably installs much like the Quest alternator would. So how to find the right belt? Maybe you could put your stock pulley on it and get slightly less amps (which is still enough for your needs).

Alright, then you have some other play in the front end and even a little brake rotor runout can be magnified by that play. The tires themselves could cause vibration at speed, but would not contribute to the braking vibration you feel in the pedal. The looseness over bumps wouldn't be due to tires and might be something that can cause the extra disruption you feel braking. Check the steering. Tie rods and the steering rack's bushings. Your steering rack may be able to move back and forth due to bad bushings. Any play or slop in the steering can result in changing toe, bump steer, and side-to-side oscillations. You would feel this in the steering wheel Also have the wheel bearings checked. If these are bad you could feel that through the steering wheel as well as the brake pedal. Those are the things that could be introducing vibrations that can be magnified while braking. (as could the rotors of course)

Ok, so it needs to lean out far enough to match the lower bumper's approach angle then. Got it. Thanks.

So have you completed the rebuild yet? Or is it yet to be started? If done, let us know how it turned out. If not...then I would throw a new idea out for you to think about. Others suggested cam change for increased power, but really the types of cams they were talking about would increase top end power which you don't want in an SUV. In fact, I think these trucks were cammed like cars in that they make too much top-end power and too little bottom end power. So if you went with a different cam, one that's tuned to make maximum VE around 2500 rpms is ideal. Peak torque might be at 3k. Does your friend's $800 rebuild include the typical machine work? Hot tanking the block, honing the cylinders (preferably with a torque plate) and the whole head rebuild (springs, retainers, and all that good stuff)? If you have the heads ported and polished and perhaps matched to the intake ports for a few hundred $ more, it can pay dividends in improved torque for years to come (just don't have them increase runner volume at all)

That's quite a mystery. Is your front diff not level? That's the only thing I can think of that would have your vehicle sitting level and the cv axles not being at the same angle. But your front control arm is different too? Tweaked or bent front subframe?