Topic: What have you done for your Rig lately.

[steve c]

Since your south of the border, shouldn't they be bright green?

hahahaahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahaah

[EJsarus]

My ARB RTT has arrived. Cant open until brackets are made. Lucky me, I have a buddy who is a fabricator and will be cutting proper length brackets. Will open it and snap a pic for the gram hopefully by Wednesday. It does have that semi nasty storage mildewy smell on it. Will leave it overnight opened and lay baking soda and  ozone odor eliminator spray.  Will wash the mattress cover and get it "homely". Til then, I cant wait to get it out in the wild where it belongs.

Best part, I got it dirt cheap.

[FrankB]

are those in case you flip over? so the search party can see you from the air?

No kidding.  That's kind of what I said when my wife asked why I was painting the skids on my 2005 black Xterra yellow.  It's a safety feature.

[steve c]

Some tswap / axle swap with a little help from my friends.

What have you done for your Rig lately.

(and yes, we are going drop the rack down.  I just had to see it mounted stock before we cut it up!_

[FBinSD]

Nice! Even cleaned the rig for the photo!  Looks great.

[steve c]

Thanks Frank!  I'll give you a pass for not showing up to help

Here are some more photos

What have you done for your Rig lately.

What have you done for your Rig lately.

What have you done for your Rig lately.

[EJsarus]

Steve at it again with the killer shots... Rack look dope AF.





btw Thanks for the invite   

[Jayrat]

Looks awesome Steve , 
your always 3 steps ahead of me

[JFanaselle]

Public service announcement: Don't use anything other than stainless hardware in the factory roof rivnuts/nutserts. When I installed my aluminum rack (that is still for sale, by the way ), I thought the shiny silver stainless stuff looked bad against the cool black powdercoated rack. So I purchased black zinc oxide hardware instead. Well, fast forward a couple of years when I go to pull that rack off and replace it with my new front runner rack, and nearly every single bolt had rusted up inside the threaded inserts (rivnuts) on the roof. Nearly all of the ruvnuts ended up breaking free, spinning loose in the roof instead of allowing the bolts to back out of them.

What a PITA. I removed the headliner and was able to clamp vice grips onto the back of most of them in order to finish backing the bolts out. Some of them are blocked by structural supports, and required force to remove the entire rivnut from the roof (which leaves an awful mushroom shaped hole. ). Anyway, I spent all day yesterday drilling them all out and installing new ones that I ordered online. Sealed the holes up with silicone as I installed them to prevent any leaks. And yes, I know my roof is extremely dirty. I'll be washing it before the new rack gets installed.

The culprits:
 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

Headliner removed:
 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

New rivnut installed. So beautiful:
 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

Here's the combination of parts I used to install them, in place of a proper tool. Worked well, but I went through about 3 or 4 of those star washers:
 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

The installation process. My hand and arm are super sore from the amount force required on that ratchet. I didn't want to use something mechanical though, for fear of over-tightening them:
 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

A dab of clear silicone around each hole before installing the new nuts. This was especially important, as the metal was pretty messed up around a few of them from removing them:
 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

"Saudi Spec," as knight rider would say. I wonder how much better my gas mileage is now.
 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

[ultrapc40]

Ugh. When we did painroller’s one of the nut insert spun. It was a pain for one, can’t imagine dealing with all of them.

[knightrider]

The gas mileage is negligible but the noise reduction is yuge.

[steve c]

Joe, that looks miserable. 

Glad you got it sorted. 

[JFanaselle]

Roof rack project is finally complete. New rack has received the "Toro mod," and looks great on the rig! I purchased the Rough Country "X5" series light bar, which turned out to be a beast! It BARELY fits in the space between the front of the rack and the roof.

What have you done for your Rig lately.

What have you done for your Rig lately.

What have you done for your Rig lately.

What have you done for your Rig lately.

What have you done for your Rig lately.

What have you done for your Rig lately.

What have you done for your Rig lately.

[0317]

looks awesome

[Riz98]

New tires and wheels showed up today.  This time around I will be using wheel locks to hopefully keep some of the less intelligent thieves away.  Short story a week ago today all four of my tires were stolen and I walked out Saturday morning to my Xterra sitting on the rotors and drums.  Went with some Falken Wildpeak MT's 35x12.5x15 with some black steel wheels.  While the X was just sitting for the week figure why not look at the brakes.  Front driver caliper was sticking which was probably causing my slight pull to the left.  Ended up replacing both front calipers and brake pads.  Rotors have alot of meat left on them and dont show any signs of being damaged so those will not get replaced.