Pathfinder LE wheels on my Frontier

[hawairish]

General topic, maybe off-topic, but still PF love!

 

I've been hoarding LE wheels (9 of them so far) for a while and finally got around to slapping a set of them on my 98 Frontier.  Had a shop in town strip them down, repair all scrapes and curb rashes, then powder coat them in "wet charcoal with satin finish".  The results came out great so I thought I'd share the journey.

 

Started out with 17x7 4Runner wheels shown below.  Tires were old (Fall 2016, installed early 2017) with only 4,100 miles and tons of tread left, but showing their age.  I started a new job at the beginning of April which has me commuting again, so it was time to change them.

 

 

TownDawg helped me visualize (a la Photoshop) what the LEs would look like on it...

 

 

And with a little bit more drop (only 1" in the pic above)...

 

 

Truck's been undergoing a slow restoration for a while (body, paint, and glass done 2022, new tint and interior around the corner) so the plan was to get a set repaired and put new tires on them.  All the ones I had have varying issues, but fortunately no major ones.

 

As much as I like the factory silver on the T4Rs and the LEs (both similar color as the original wheels), the color has always been out of place in my opinion.  And for what it was going to cost to refinish each wheel (5 of them), it was actually more expensive to go with a factory finish than a powder coat ($275/ea vs $225/ea).  So, bought 5 new tires and took my 5 crustiest wheels to the shop to scope color options.  Was looking specifically for something that keyed off of the inset of the grille.

 

 

Found a pretty good match...

 

 

The results...

 

 

 

I also stripped down a set of center caps so they could be paint matched...not too bad!

 

 

Cut new adhesive for the emblems as best as I could...

 

 

 

Installed...

 

 

 

Just the right amount of stick-out, no spacers...

 

 

Kinda gray, kinda charcoal, kinda black...depends on the light I suppose.  But they came out great!  New lugs and lock nuts seal the deal.

 

LEs are 17x8 and the 235/55R17 tire is supposed to be about 27.2" diameter, but according to GPS speed it's much closer to a 26" (stock size).  27.4" tires should have offset the H233B w/ 3.9 gears (stock 3.7) according to my calculator, but I still needed to use the 18-tooth speedo pinion gear (stock 17) I had previously installed.  Speedo's spot on now.

[hawairish]

And here's what they look like with a bed resting on them when the in-tank fuel temp sensor is throwing codes and emission tests are due soon...