Michael's 02 X build thread

[Prime]

Yeah they're literally the worst.

 

[MichaelS75]

Tell me about it. I got failed for "upper ball joints not being secured properly" and "rear brake line too short" like what??? I guess this shop has never seen a calmini UCA before. And I'm really confused about the brake line cuz I've had the rear axle at full droop on both sides and it's never been a problem. The manifold I can understand, it's in pretty bad shape.

 

[Prime]

I understand some level of safety inspection. Because nobody takes care of their stuff. Brakes, tires, suspension items. Fine. Emissions? Not safety. Auxiliary lights? Not safety. Window tint? Not safety.

 

[StupidFish]

Got failed once for having a "lifted vehicle". No joke. Dude pretty much told me only the factory can lift a vehicle and it be legal. I showed him the va state laws for lifted vehicles and that I was well within the guidelines and he gave me the number to the officer in charge of inspections. He was an idiot too....

 

[Prime]

Did you know that according to state law, it's illegal to install a body lift? It reads something like "any device intended to increase the measurement from the frame to the body"

 

[Prime]

Got failed once for having a "lifted vehicle". No joke. Dude pretty much told me only the factory can lift a vehicle and it be legal. I showed him the va state laws for lifted vehicles and that I was well within the guidelines and he gave me the number to the officer in charge of inspections. He was an idiot too....

That's fun. Did you call the state police about it? I would have.

 

[MichaelS75]

My moms 4runner failed one year because they said she needed a new tranny filter. My dad called the state police about that one lol. I'm just glad I know enough to do the work myself and not get screwed over by a shop that's making up things

 

[StupidFish]

That's fun. Did you call the state police about it? I would have.

I did. Cop told me to buy a new truck and a trailer to haul the x.

 

[Prime]

I did. Cop told me to buy a new truck and a trailer to haul the x.

What!? What an ignorant ass.

 

[StupidFish]

Well said

 

[MichaelS75]

Merry friggin Christmas to me. Changed out the dreaded passenger side manifold and I have to say it really wasn't that bad. All the studs came out easily with a breaker bar and pipe for leverage. The only problem I had was getting the far left lower stud back in. The primary cat kept getting in the way and I ended up destroying the threads on the engine block. Luckily I had the perfect tap and die set to fix that. In total, it took around 4 hours I wanna say. Also drilled through the frame horns and put another bolt through the RLC, first time I tried using the winch the whole bumper shifted down from the force. Should be rock solid now.

 

[MichaelS75]

CLEAN! Spent about 4 hours today freezing my ass off getting every bit of mud off it as I could. Pretty sure it's cleaner than when I bought it from the dealer.

 

[Prime]

Looking good!

 

[drbandkgb]

Looking great

 

[MichaelS75]

Thanks guys! Finally after weeks and weeks of waiting some snow came to central VA... Wasn't a lot by any means but hopefully some snow wheeling will happen here soon. If I'm lucky

 

[MichaelS75]

So I oddly have no power going to my factory fog light wires. I turned the stalk to the on position and the multimeter was reading 0 volts on both sides which is weird. I had the led pods wired directly to the factory fog wires and they worked great for about a month. The pods started flickering occasionally and now I've got nothing. Anyone else had this problem?

 

[ThompsonXterra]

So I oddly have no power going to my factory fog light wires. I turned the stalk to the on position and the multimeter was reading 0 volts on both sides which is weird. I had the led pods wired directly to the factory fog wires and they worked great for about a month. The pods started flickering occasionally and now I've got nothing. Anyone else had this problem?

Not an expert on wiring by any means but could you have possibly blown a fuse? LEDs usually take thicker wiring to work "safely" so they might have been drawing too much power for the factory fuse/wiring.

 

[Prime]

Check your fuses number one. The load of the LEDs is significantly less than the OE fog lights, so they should never blow a fuse. However if there's a short in one of the lights that would cause the fuse to blow. If the fuse is blown, disconnect bother lights after replacing it and check your voltage. Then connect one at time and test. If the fuse blows you know you have a short somewhere.

 

[MichaelS75]

Yep turned out to be the fuse. I did a pretty bad job wiring them originally and they must've been shorting out. After fixing that I decided to put up my 40" LED light bar. Just a "cheap" Amazon bar I got bot I think it was well worth the money. Obviously my iPhone camera doesn't do it any justice but damn this thing is bright. For now, this is just my very temporary mounting location. Once I get back home and have the proper tools I'll probably just bolt it to the air dam and modify the mounts that came with it. Not totally sure about the final design yet.

I haven't been able to really "test" the bar yet but I'd say it'll throw usable light at least 200 yards. Lights up everything in front of me like it's daytime.

 

[MichaelS75]

More brightness

 

[kirk]

Damn that suckers bright!

 

[MichaelS75]

Got my flag decal "installed" yesterday. Thanks Luke!

 

[Cruecible]

Black & Red. I love that color combo

 

[ThompsonXterra]

Flag decal looks clean man :kewl:

 

[Alpine Spirit]

Nice touch


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MichaelS75]

Thanks guys! Here's a random photo dump of my last trail ride. Ended up going to the Ruth Hollow fire trail in Madison, Virginia. Nothing too extreme but with the weather being in the 60's, it was a great day trip. The trail is about 3-4 miles long and has great views riding along the ridgeline for a majority of the ride. Being a fire road, there really isn't much in the way of rock crawling, but there's a good amount of mud and a few decent hill climbs.

 

[MichaelS75]

I'm still trying to document all the mods I've done over the last few years so here's another update. When I originally decided to begin the red accents inside and outside the X I started with installing front footwell red LED strips. My iPhone makes it look more orange but they are a pretty deep red. Only purpose it really serves is when my crappy wiring job decides to get caught on the pedal at night I can actually see the problem. Which is guess isn't the safest thing ever but oh well. Next is a pic of the LED reverse lights I installed a while ago. I would highly recommend these, especially for them being $30 and bright as crap. Lastly is just a pic of the new system I put in there a few months ago.

 

[KChurch86]

Damn, those reverse lights ARE bright. Got a link to them?

 

[MichaelS75]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S0YHL5K?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00

Searching "flush mount LED pods" on Amazon turns up a million different results for them but they're basically all gonna be the same. I just went with a set that had Amazon Prime shipping. The OEM reverse lights are just about useless so for $30 I'm more than happy with them. Haven't had a problem yet

 

[KChurch86]

Oooh, derp. I didn't read far enough into it to realize what they were. I thought you had LED bulbs in your taillights that were that bright. My bad.

 

[Tex Terra]

Really nice build you have going on! Great job brother

 

[MichaelS75]

Man I haven't updates this in forever. Been busy working over the summer and even more so now that school has started. I'm gonna work on updating everything I've done over the past few months but for now, here's two teaser shots for everyone's enjoyment.