[TerryD]

Intro Comments: This is my build for a formidable camping and trip rig for family trips, camping, hunting and mild wheeling throughout the year. I wanted body-on-frame, solid rear axle, and IFS but didn't want to break the bank.

Username: TerryD

Xterra's Nickname:"Pepper"

Make: Nissan
Year: 2007
Model: Xterra
Trim: S
Color: Midnight Blue Metallic
​

MODS

Driveline:

New Transmission and radiator bypass
Hitch and Differential Breather Extension
Differentials and T-case swapped to Amsoil products
Secondary Timing Set TSB (5/15/17)
New Radiator (5/15/17)
Magnaflow Primary Cats (6/19/18)
Replaced Heater Tees (6/29/19)
​

Suspension:

Removed rear swaybar
285/75/16 Cooper Discoverer AT3 (4/2/18)
Melt Mod
Rear Radflos (4/14/18)
Timbren Rear Bumps (4/14/18)
Alcans +2.5" +550lb (4/14/18)
SPC UCA's (4/14/18)
PRG U-Bolt Flip Kit (4/14/18)
Front Extended Radflos with 650lb/in springs (5/23/18)
1/2" Nisstec spacers (9-20-18)
XterraPerformance/Nisstec Extended Brake Hoses (pending)
SuperPro Steering Rack Bushings (10-13-18)
​

Interior:

Heavy Duty Rear Cargo Tiedowns
Raingler Full Attic Net (6/16/17)
Raingler Full Barrier Net (10/27/17)
Blue Ridge Overland Gear Medium Med Pack (1-1-18)
​

Exterior:

Matching Spare Wheel
Luyed LED Backup bulbs (6/26/17)
Eagle Eye Black Bezel Headlights
@KWSRStorm Cheap Roof Rack (2/16/18)

XBULL Traction Board Brackets added to roof rack cross bars (6/8/18)​

Armor/Protection/Recovery

Full set of Pro4X skids
White Knuckle 10* Sliders (12-1-17)
ARB CKMA12 Single Compressor *pending*
Shrockworks front bumper (9-20-18)
Warn Zeon 10S winch (9-20-18)
Tuffy Flip Up License Plate Bracket (9-25-18)
​

Communication:

Lip mount nmo with 2m/440 Tram antenna
Kenwood TM-D710Ga 2m/440 Dual Band Radio (3-22-19)
​

Removed:

Factory mud flaps
Rear swaybar
Factory step tubes
Helwig 550 helpers
New Bilstein 4600s
Fat Bob's Bilstein 5100 Coilovers
Front Swaybar
TYT TH-9800 2m/440 Dual Band
​

Comments:

PHOTOS

4/7/19
20190407_135428 by TerryD, on Flickr

20190407_135446 by TerryD, on Flickr

4/28/18
20180430_092644 by TerryD, on Flickr

4/14/18
20180414_180956 by TerryD, on Flickr

Don's visit 4-6-18 by TerryD, on Flickr

1-28-18
20180128_104958 by TerryD, on Flickr

First Day
So here she sits! A good start to what I want I think!
Xterra Day 1 by TerryD, on Flickr
​

Trips
6/2/2017
Covington, Va to Harrisonburg, Virginia via back roads

8/26/2017
OB Big Level's Trip

4/28/2018
MAOS FlagPole Knob trip with IssacHunter and PipeFighter (Formerly VAXC Wheel Away Winter 2018)

6/15/2018
Failed family camping trip to Flag Pole with CPS failure

7/3/2018
Camping near Buena Vista

8/25/2018
TNX/VAXC Union Springs Flag Pole Trip

 

[JOSX2]

Welcome to the club! first mod...remove the oem steps ;-)

Regarding getting out of 4-LO...ya need to be in neutral (to both engage/disengage 4-LO). Put Pepper in N, shift into 4-HI, then put out on D. Drive forward a bit and it'll shift out. And sometimes to get back into 2WD, ya can reverse a couple feet after shifting into 2WD.

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[TerryD]

Welcome to the club! first mod...remove the oem steps ;-)

Regarding getting out of 4-LO...ya need to be in neutral (to both engage/disengage 4-LO). Put Pepper in N, shift into 4-HI, then put out on D. Drive forward a bit and it'll shift out. And sometimes to get back into 2WD, ya can reverse a couple feet after shifting into 2WD.

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Sweet! Thanks for that, I'll give it a shot here in a few. As for the steps, my younger daughters are 5 and 6 so I like having the steps for now. I'm hoping for sliders and skids in the future though. Low lift and good protection.

EDIT: Relocated from original first post:

First things first, I drove it about 70 miles home from Staunton where my friend I bought it from met me this evening. Did 75-80 most of the way home, it ran out nice and smooth and was much nicer to drive than the 2000 S10 Blazer it is replacing.

First thing I had to do when I got it to the house was check out the 4WD system. I locked it in 4-LO and idled it around the yard a bit, did some side hilling in the back yard and crawled it up and down a few little hills I have here. First issue, I couldn't get it back out of 4-LO. The 4WD light came on and the shift indicator went blank. I shut it off, restarted it in N with my foot on the brake and after moving it from 4-HI to 2WD a few times, it took off and the indicator came back on in 2WD. I've read about this so I wasn't caught COMPLETELY off-guard.

Next was to move all my little junk over to it. I moved my truck box (straps, wheel chock, few fluids, tire patch kit and the like) into it and strapped it to the back of the back seats. Next was putting my 2m ham radio in it. Not knowing where I want to do a permanent of the antenna, I grabbed my nmo mag mount and stuck it on the passenger side in front of the rear most roof rack leg and ran the coax down behind the rear gate and up through the storage compartment to the console where I set the radio in the big square spot in front of the shifter.

After that, I couldn't take the mud flaps any more so I pulled it around back to the garage and took them off. There's some fading that'll have to match on the rear body sides and some scratches where the fronts contacted the body but that'll be fine, NO MORE MUD FLAPS!

The tires are factory size 265/70/16s and are in great shape so I'll run them off it this winter and maybe next summer, after I research exactly what I'm going to do, I'll be shopping for some 265/75s and a 2" kit for it. Unless I can score a 226 with a locker before then for insanely cheap, I doubt I'll go any bigger on tire size for now.

Oh yeah, my daughters all decided that the Xterra's name was going to be "Pepper Blue" for some reason, but they name all our vehicles so I'm going with it.

 

[JOSX2]

Ehhh....excuses....I got a 3 and 5 yr old....I just gave them a little boost up as they tried to climb up before I got my sliders on ;-) LOL. (j/k about the 'excuses' part ;-) )

Keep your eye on the ' For sale' area. You'll see skids pop up for sale once in a while. Sliders too sometimes.

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[TerryD]

It will be next year before I can put much into it for parts. My wife is going back to school so funds are going to be tight for things I don't "need" for a while.

Sorry about the thread format, I've been trying to go back and correct my opening post but for some reason my computer isn't wanting to do it right now. I'll get it fixed ASAP, I promise. :grin:

 

[JOSX2]

Best get the format fixed ASAP before they ban you from here!

J/K don't sweat it, you're all good

I hear you on the money and mods. It took me just about six years to get my truck where it is today . And the majority of it happened about 3 to 4 months ago too!

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[Jmb1596]

First thing you should do is do the transmission/radiator bypass. I was unaware before joining this forum. You don't want smod, from everything I've read it's pretty easy and cheap to do and will save your trans.

 

[jeffnjm3]

Congrats! Sounds like you plan to have some fun with it, good deal

 

[JOSX2]

First thing you should do is do the transmission/radiator bypass. I was unaware before joining this forum. You don't want smod, from everything I've read it's pretty easy and cheap to do and will save your trans.

He picked it up with SMOD and replaced the tranny ;-)
http://www.thenewx.org/forum/showthread.php?t=209770

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[Xscape]

Congrats on the new ride! We took our last Xterra to the Outer Banks and it did excellent while running on the beach. I was actually amazed how well it performed in mostly stock form. And we never had to put it in 4LO!:thumbup:

 

[TerryD]

First thing you should do is do the transmission/radiator bypass. I was unaware before joining this forum. You don't want smod, from everything I've read it's pretty easy and cheap to do and will save your trans.

Already done and a new transmission is in! Starting to research replacement radiators for it. I'm wanting to do a little towing with it so I want a nice heavy duty unit for it.

 

[TerryD]

Congrats on the new ride! We took our last Xterra to the Outer Banks and it did excellent while running on the beach. I was actually amazed how well it performed in mostly stock form. And we never had to put it in 4LO!:thumbup:

That's good to hear! That's exactly what I'm wanting to be able to do with it. Starting to figure out where to store my gear in it now. I like keeping my jack inside so that'll be an issue to solve.

I did manage to do the idle and throttle relearns this morning before walking in the mill. We'll see tonight if it helps on cold start. It was revving to about 2k on startup but stayed around 750 afterward.

Also looking into mounts for antennas. Anyone have a through hole nmo mount on your roof? I'd like to see where you put it. I'm running a mag mount now and I can really tell a difference from the one I had on my little Blazer. For HF I'm looking at the body side mount like tomrejzek has on his with some hamstick type antennas. I haven't decided if I'll run a CB in this rig or not. In the past its been handy but I generally run 146.52 or the local repeater when I travel now.

What say you?

 

[TerryD]

If I correct the format, will this get moved to the members section or have I done something else wrong?

 

[VMBiohazard]

Welcome and nice rig!

 

[JOSX2]

If I correct the format, will this get moved to the members section or have I done something else wrong?

@Old Navy

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[Old Navy]

If I correct the format, will this get moved to the members section or have I done something else wrong?

Can be moved back - all you have to do is follow the posting requirements;

http://www.thenewx.org/forum/50-mem...les-please-read-***-updated-03-26-2008-a.html

 

[TerryD]

Can be moved back - all you have to do is follow the posting requirements;

http://www.thenewx.org/forum/50-mem...les-please-read-***-updated-03-26-2008-a.html

Roger that, I just have not been near a computer to edit my post. I'll try to get it right tonight.

 

[Old Navy]

I would have helped you out, but I busy taking care of a lot of Spammers that have attacked the site right now.

 

[TerryD]

I would have helped you out, but I busy taking care of a lot of Spammers that have attacked the site right now.

Not a problem brother! You go do your thing and I'll hopefully get this squared away this evening.

 

[TerryD]

OK, I think I got the format correct, if not please let me know and I'll try to get it fixed!