Nice X. I have a 2011 4x4 automatic that I love. Wish it was a manual but this was a one owner garage kept vehicle, got it right at 100k, have put almost another 14k on it with nothing but oil changes and couldn't be happier. One thing I am dealing with is the soft rear suspension bottoming out issues. I dont want to do a full lift yet so I'm considering either helper springs or airbags. Want to get a few aluminum skids under it first and then get an OME 2 inch lift down the line.
I beefed up the rear of mine when it was stock using a set of the Hellwig EZ550 helpers and a pair of the Pro4X original Bilstein rear shocks. That dramatically improved the rear suspension over stock. You can generally get the Bilstein shocks used from Facebook or an Xterra forum pretty reasonably. As for skids, the OE skids are a good start and usually can be had cheap. I think a good set of sliders are more important for 90% of what people do. I have the ones from White Knuckle Offroad with the tube at 10*. They were well worth the money and they've taken some good abuse. The OME kit is a great setup with the full leaf packs. I think it's a good all around kit and it's really well matched to perform both on and off road.
Cool, thanks for the tips, I ended up pulling the trigger on some firestone airbags, this is my daily driver so the ability to easily adjust ride quality is appealing, I do eventually plan to build out a 5x8 or 6x10 box trailer as a poor man's tear drop camper and the ability to air up for towing really seems very practical. The ease of installation is also pretty nice as I lack a good work space right now. As far as armor I dont plan to be "crawling" this X for a while and I more look at the skids as protection from that unseen rock in the middle of a rougher FS road waiting to take the T-case or transmission out, I'll keep an eye out for some stock skids off of someone's pro 4x that they are up grading.
Working on the wiring for my rear locker. Adding the switch to the panel where the factory locker switch would have been. Also changing out the factory VDC OFF switch for a Carling momentary rocker switch like the locker switch I'm using. I ordered a new Kenwood head unit as well today with bluetooth and USB inputs. It's not a fancy touch screen job because lets be honest, I'm doing $15k worth of mods to a $3k SUV....
Got the X buttoned up and my VDC OFF switch arrived. I've got to get some 8ga lugs to finish the power feed to my new fuse panel and wire up the locker this week.
Thanks! I'm pretty pleased with it. I kinda wish I had got the VDC switch as lower lit rather than up. The lamp lights up the dash behind it a bit but I don't know if it's worth another $20 to change that now. I've got a switch for my air compressor installed on the other side of the dash I need to wire up now but I've got to figure out where I'm going to actually mount the compressor.
Im with you. Better is the enemy of good sometimes. After soldering and setting up something like that the last thing i would want to do it change it.
Nice! @TerryD I'm considering adding a monitoring computer in about the same location on my Taco soon. Fortunately the display will just be 3m-ed on so I won't have to add any switches. Fingers crossed, that the wiring goes well.
Ordered a bunch of parts from mcmaster to build my own custom roof rack for my xterra. went back and forth on material and finally settled on anti vibration u bolts and 6 foot lengths of low profile steel strut channel for my initial bars, as I figure out what else I want I'll add more using the strut brackets and more low profile strut material.
Yup, I used to order from them almost daily at a previous job, they never have the best price on anything, but they are a one stop shop for everything you need for a project, good descriptions, quality parts, no minimum quantities and super fast shipping, all of which more than makes up for their prices.
We've had this little trailer for a while now with intentions of building an offroad trailer to haul our gear in and open up some space for the 5 of us in the Xterra. We have a trip coming up this weekend so what better time to cut the trailer into pieces and spend a weekend welding? I started by removing the tongue. It's just bolted in so that wasn't an issue. I also cut out the rear brace. I replaced the rear brace with a piece of 2x4 box tubing then extended the tongue about 4' to accommodate a cargo basket in front of the body and still have enough room to back into the tongue at 90* for maneuvering purposes. In the past I had flipped the axle for added clearance as well. After that I relocated the tail lights to the top rail on the body and rewired it all. I think this is going to be a great thing. It will also allow us to haul the dog in the back of the Xterra easier since she won't be dancing on the kids feet the whole trip. Now hopefully the weather holds and we get to test it out!
Nice, what is your roof basket set up? I just started on building mine out of low profile steel struts and anti vibration u bolts. Got my initial underslung cross bars and a 48in diamond plate aluminum truck bed side tool box mounted on one side, it is a little red neck looking but it is perfect for a broken down hilift, axe, shovel, chain and a bunch of other small tools. Next mcmaster order is gonna be some more strut and aluminum to build a basket next to that and below the factory rails and then 38" wide bars on top of the factory rails out to one side for carrying a canoe.