- Location
- Denver Adjacent
Why are you flagged like that?
The Grackle
- Thread starter General_Tarfun
- Start date
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
I’m not sure, haven’t been able to find much info on it but it might be related to moving and not transferring registration. Doesn’t seem to have any bearing on registering in the new county though.
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
I finally cleared the Catalyst self test, but a code for the primary A/F sensor popped up. Since they have 205k on them I'm just going to replace the front/rears as a group. Probably way overdue anyway.
After this the next project is dropping the fuel tank to replace the fuel level sending unit. Had a terrible experience last week where on a trip back home from Cincinnati the gauge stuck at 1/4 tank and I didn't notice that the pump cut off about 6 gallons under full. Since I was basing the next fill-up on miles I ended up running out of gas on 75 South somewhere in Kentucky. Long story short about 3 hours later I was able to get some gas delivered and back on the road, never again!
After this the next project is dropping the fuel tank to replace the fuel level sending unit. Had a terrible experience last week where on a trip back home from Cincinnati the gauge stuck at 1/4 tank and I didn't notice that the pump cut off about 6 gallons under full. Since I was basing the next fill-up on miles I ended up running out of gas on 75 South somewhere in Kentucky. Long story short about 3 hours later I was able to get some gas delivered and back on the road, never again!
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
The code cleared itself yesterday and I took it in for the emissions check which it passed. I still have the EVAP test pending but you can pass with 1 incomplete test in GA. I'm waiting to hear back from the tag office to clear up the registration hold and then I'll be in good shape again.
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
Replaced both A/F sensors today, that was fun lol.
My dad gave me some kevlar arm sleeves last year which worked great for keeping me from getting scratched up but man there's not a lot of room to get to the sensors/connectors.
My dad gave me some kevlar arm sleeves last year which worked great for keeping me from getting scratched up but man there's not a lot of room to get to the sensors/connectors.
- Location
- Livermore, CA
add this to the list of things I didn’t know I needed
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
I always wear a jacket if it wasn’t summer but since my dads retired now he’s been slowly giving me a lot of his old mechanic stuff and I spotted those.
I think the brand is Mac, they look ancient but work great, for once I walked away without a single arm scratch.
I think the brand is Mac, they look ancient but work great, for once I walked away without a single arm scratch.
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
Finally got my registration done, turns out the old county put a state hold on my registration after I updated my address with the state instead of a county hold. A quick phone call took care of it.
Now that I'm done with that I'm starting on some other projects. Last summer I installed the 2" Nisstec body lift and a radiator drop bracket from 4x4parts, a month later driving to Texas and back the AC was struggling to stay cold and the coolant temps were the highest I've ever seen on it–although still in the 'safe' range it was the upper threshold it was high enough for the computer to trigger the AC to turn off.
I'm wondering now what the point of the drop brackets is, unless I'm thinking about it wrong I think all I did was lower the radiator below the air inlets where it used to line up with the body. I'm wondering if that was why it struggled to lower the coolant temps.
Now that I'm done with that I'm starting on some other projects. Last summer I installed the 2" Nisstec body lift and a radiator drop bracket from 4x4parts, a month later driving to Texas and back the AC was struggling to stay cold and the coolant temps were the highest I've ever seen on it–although still in the 'safe' range it was the upper threshold it was high enough for the computer to trigger the AC to turn off.
I'm wondering now what the point of the drop brackets is, unless I'm thinking about it wrong I think all I did was lower the radiator below the air inlets where it used to line up with the body. I'm wondering if that was why it struggled to lower the coolant temps.
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
Oh, I thought there was more to it. The kit came with the longer upper hose but I wasn't thrilled with how the lower hose looked, it had a slight bend in it. Not terrible but I think would have been a bit of a bottleneck flow-wise.
There wasn't any air that I noticed in it but something weird was that for the first half of the trip (1000 miles or so) I had to add maybe 2 cups of coolant every time we stopped for the night. So maybe 400 miles a day. On the way home and until now it's been fine which I can't make sense of. The overflow outlet was always dry and the rad caps are OE and less than a year old.
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
I've been spending so much time in rental cars for work lately that now when I get in the X I really miss the audio controls on the steering wheel. I'm close to finishing a purchase of a brand new OE leather wheel with the illuminated cruise and audio controls for about a hundred bucks.
I'll have to test the colors on the controls once I get it, I doubt they match the interior colors I put on the rest of the controls (5K white) so I might have to change those out as well. Offhand I have no idea what's involved with a steering wheel replacement so I'm about to pull up the FSM but if anyone has pointers they'd be appreciated.
I'll have to test the colors on the controls once I get it, I doubt they match the interior colors I put on the rest of the controls (5K white) so I might have to change those out as well. Offhand I have no idea what's involved with a steering wheel replacement so I'm about to pull up the FSM but if anyone has pointers they'd be appreciated.
- Location
- Covington, Va
I just looked into a writeup on the "other forum" that discussed it. There's a LOT of repinning to do to the connector and you have to add a wire for the illumination.
I'm not sure if using a pathfinder clock spring would fix that or not. Need to dig some more.
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
That's where I started looking for info too. The repinning should be fun, from what I've read basically nothing lines up. Looking into the Pathy clockspring is a good idea. I might also pull the FSM for that model and see if I can cross reference the wiring diagrams.
Thankfully the illumination will be easy, I got tired of always running a new line for various switches and the last time I had the dash open I went ahead and set up an illumination relay to a distribution block to make it easy going forward.
- Location
- Rochester, NY
I forget, what deck do you have in there? If you’re doing all that for the wheel controls, might want to go the next step and look into deck integration with voice/Bluetooth control for your phone. Do it all at once if that’s something you’d be thinking about later if not already.
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
I still have the deck I put in back in 2013, a Pioneer AVH8500bhs. It's ancient now and although it still works fine I'd really prefer something newer with carplay at least so that's a good point on looking ahead a bit to save myself from opening the dash up multiple times.
From what I've read I think I need one of those units that sends the steering wheel inputs to the audio deck but they appear to be universal unless I'm looking at it wrong. If that's correct I'd be able to wire it all up as-is and when I replace the deck it should work.
- Location
- Rochester, NY
When I did mine I went with the pioneer AVIC-W6400NEX and followed that one tutorial on “the other site” that detailed the deck, wheel integration and camera/backup bypass all in one. Still had to add the Metra wheel control add-on module to get my factory wheel controls to work, but that’s cuz I already had them factory as part of the Rockford Fosgate system. I also wanted wireless CarPlay so that compounded my install. You may have a very unique situation with wheel controls not designed for your X and trying to add aftermarket equipment on top of it. If that’s your headed path, look into the iDatalink with Maestro and compatible decks. They may make things simpler even though they’re pricey. My info also may be out of date from doing my deck 3 years ago.
- Location
- Covington, Va
The Xterra controls aren't back-lit like the Pathy controls. That's where all the rewiring comes in.
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
Just to complicate things further, I just noticed that the wheel I bought is also heated. The seller must have not realized it since it wasn't in the listing but I spotted the connector in the pics that someone referenced in one of their how-to's. I'm going to start looking into the Pathy clockspring some more to see if that might simplify some of this for me.
I might have come up with an easier way of doing some of this. If I bought an electrical slip ring and installed it behind the wheel that would let me run the wires for the heater and radio controls directly to where I want them without having to replace the clock spring (I think).
I might have come up with an easier way of doing some of this. If I bought an electrical slip ring and installed it behind the wheel that would let me run the wires for the heater and radio controls directly to where I want them without having to replace the clock spring (I think).
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- Location
- Denver Adjacent
I want to do a heated 14 Titan wheel. Or a 19 Altima wheel.
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
My last rental was a 2021 Rogue Sport and it has a wheel similar to that Altima one, I loved it. Mainly because of the telescoping feature, if there were a somewhat easy way to get that I'd be all over it.
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
I received the new wheel yesterday and swapped the LED's out to white last night. I got the new wheel installed today and all that's left is adding pins to the lower dash harness for everything but cruise control. I haven't driven it yet but the leather wheel feels amazing. Honesty, a bit too premium for the X lol.
- Location
- Big Island
My 2002 SE came with a leather wheel and stereo controls for the original deck. Had a Grundig GX-3800 installed and they hooked up the stereo controls on the wheel as well as a backup camera hooked to reverse. Installed a USB port on the dash too. These changes along with CarPlay made my xterra feel like a modern car even though it has a stick shift 
. Totally worth it. Good luck with your super deluxe wheel transplant sounds great
. Totally worth it. Good luck with your super deluxe wheel transplant sounds great
General_Tarfun
Sliders
- Location
- Atlanta, GA
Just to warn everyone, save yourselves a lot of time and never read any "tutorials" on modding the X steering wheel for a Pathy one. Forgive me but, a bunch of idiots guessing at wires. After two attempts I broke down and pulled the wheel and clockspring and used my multimeter to check where each wire led. So frustrating for how low quality the info was on this.
- Location
- Denver Adjacent
That's is the right way. Multimeter all the things.
Congrats on getting it done.
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
Thanks Prime, it took forever but man, the things everyone were listing made absolutely no sense. FFS, I'll probably do my own (
factual) write up of how to do it. It's not that hard with the correct info.I'm still using the original clockspring and have the heated wheel and radio controls.
When I connected a 12v bench power source to the wheel and monitored the heat readings, at max I saw 7V being pulled so I wired it up to receive voltage from a single wire.
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General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
Yesterday I decided to install the PAC wheel adapter I ordered and thought it would be easy. I wired it up according to their instructions with the resistors in place but for some reason it's all over the place. For a minute it's working fine, then the audio up will make it go down, down will go up of not work at all, same with the rest of the controls.
I tried reprogramming it 10 more times with the same results all over the place so I'm not sure what's going on. Maybe the resistors supplied were junk, when I put a meter on the wires I could never get a consistent reading.
I tried reprogramming it 10 more times with the same results all over the place so I'm not sure what's going on. Maybe the resistors supplied were junk, when I put a meter on the wires I could never get a consistent reading.
General_Tarfun
Sliders
- Location
- Atlanta, GA
I’ll be replacing the radiator soon. I was in Birmingham for a work trip and on the way out stopped at Buc-Ee’s to buy some water and snacks. Pulled into the parking lot and smelled coolant, by the time I parked steam was coming out everywhere under the hood. I expected it to be a hose or something easy but all the hoses checked out, but on the top of the rad near the metal clamps coolant was everywhere. In an attempt to limp it home I bought 2 bottles of radiator stop leak and it actually worked within minutes. I was able to get home ok but now I have to get that crap out of the system somehow.
The Koyo radiator I installed in 2013 has 91k on it so this was disappointing to say the least. The replacement is a Denso from RockAuto, no experience with their rads but I’m hoping the quality is equal to their electronics.
The Koyo radiator I installed in 2013 has 91k on it so this was disappointing to say the least. The replacement is a Denso from RockAuto, no experience with their rads but I’m hoping the quality is equal to their electronics.
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General_Tarfun
Sliders
- Location
- Atlanta, GA
Got the radiator installed last night in under two hours, could have been faster but I removed the radiator drop brackets at the same time and went with the longer hose instead. The quality appears to be pretty good, felt a bit more solid than the old Koyo. I never liked how low the radiator was with the drop brackets, I know it's only 2 inches but it put way too much of the rad below the air inlets IMO. Now I'm just waiting on more coolant to arrive and I should be in good shape again.
Makes me wonder if part of the reason for the early rad failure is related to my trip to Texas last summer where it struggled to keep temps under control after lowering the radiator. Those were the highest coolant temps I've ever seen it hit which couldn't have been great for the plastics on the rad.
Makes me wonder if part of the reason for the early rad failure is related to my trip to Texas last summer where it struggled to keep temps under control after lowering the radiator. Those were the highest coolant temps I've ever seen it hit which couldn't have been great for the plastics on the rad.
General_Tarfun
Sliders
- Location
- Atlanta, GA
The coolant I ordered finally arrived so I'm going through the air removal process to get everything back in order. Seems to be clearing out so far.
I pulled the wheel (again) to paint it now that everything is mostly working. I bought the tan version since it was 90 bucks cheaper and I found a good leather paint called Color Bond. I went with Ford Graphite and painted the wheel + the surrounding plastics so nothing stood out. It turned out really nice I think and I was finally able to black out the Nissan emblem on the airbag in the process.
The PAC audio controller is really spotty with it only working some of the time correctly. I ordered a set of resistors to try and get it working, I might end up putting a much larger one on one of the lines to try and get it to function correctly.
I pulled the wheel (again) to paint it now that everything is mostly working. I bought the tan version since it was 90 bucks cheaper and I found a good leather paint called Color Bond. I went with Ford Graphite and painted the wheel + the surrounding plastics so nothing stood out. It turned out really nice I think and I was finally able to black out the Nissan emblem on the airbag in the process.
The PAC audio controller is really spotty with it only working some of the time correctly. I ordered a set of resistors to try and get it working, I might end up putting a much larger one on one of the lines to try and get it to function correctly.
General_Tarfun
Sliders
- Location
- Atlanta, GA
We drove up to Cincinnati on Friday during the remainder of the storm, unbelievable how many people slid off the roads on 75N. This was the first time I've really used the Duratracs on icy roads and they performed flawlessly. At one point we had to go up an ice covered on ramp, uphill and basically a giant loop at the same time which several other cars got stuck on in front of us and had to back down and give up. We drove up it with basically no wheel spin at all. Great tires.
- Location
- Denver Adjacent
To be fair.... The average driver intelligence in Cincinnati is reeeeeaaaalllly low.
We drove up to Cincinnati on Friday during the remainder of the storm, unbelievable how many people slid off the roads on 75N. This was the first time I've really used the Duratracs on icy roads and they performed flawlessly. At one point we had to go up an ice covered on ramp, uphill and basically a giant loop at the same time which several other cars got stuck on in front of us and had to back down and give up. We drove up it with basically no wheel spin at all. Great tires.
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
Well yeah, but I’m from Atlanta. This place is like heaven
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
I got a recall notice in the mail, haven't seen one of those in years from Nissan. Doesn't apply to me since I replaced mine a few years ago but it's for lower control arms replaced between 11/2009-5/2010. Apparently the welds can break where the bushings are mounted. Kind of crazy given they're talking about a part made over a decade ago, I'd think all the ones that could break would have already done it by now.
- Location
- Rochester, NY
Well mine lasted the previous owner a decade in the salt belt before I ripped them and everything else out under there. They had rust, but so did everything else too. Totally agree not much of a recall notice. Maybe it’s transferable to anyone buying them second hand on the cheap. OEM replacements that could outlast what they’re throwing them on? Helps out the flat bed tow truck operator?
Newb
Bought an X
- Location
- Charlottesvile, VA
For anyone who hasn’t replaced the lowers or the bolts for the lowers, it would be a good chance to do that (at Nissan’s expense). Those bolts can be rust welded in there.
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
I had that same thought, too bad I replaced mine a few years ago. I’ve replaced mine twice so far and it’s easier in that I know what I’m doing but the job just sucks. Kind of made me laugh that someone would need to replace them after a couple years though.
General_Tarfun
Sliders
- Location
- Atlanta, GA
After replacing the radiator I noticed coolant still seeping around the main rad cap, the old one did this too prior to failure. Made me wonder if the 'nissan' spring cap I bought a year ago on Amazon was a knockoff with too high a spring rate and was over pressuring the system. I ordered two new caps from my local dealer and no more leaks.
- Location
- Denver Adjacent
For maintenance items, OE is the only way to go.
General_Tarfun
Sliders
- Location
- Atlanta, GA
Agreed. I guess I'll stay with ordering direct from the dealer going forward to avoid the fake OEM part issue.
General_Tarfun
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- Location
- Atlanta, GA
Bullydog update:
I've had the tuner installed for a couple of months now, this isn't breaking news but it's a great upgrade even for just daily driving.
I tried out the regular tune first and then went to the mid-grade gas version, over time adjust the pedal response to low and raised the timing to 2+, mainly for chasing mpg's.
With the WOT restriction removed it's interesting how the limited slip reacts with wheel spin, we have a gravel road nearby that's uphill and I've had some fun turning off VDC and punching the throttle up it. Before the X would always let loose on one wheel, but now it has no problem letting both rear wheels fly for as long as I'm willing to hold the throttle open.
My highway mileage has crept up to around 18 and I think that's mainly due to how the cruise respond now. Before when I'd be on a hill the cruise would respond aggressively and go nuts on opening the throttle and downshifting, now it responds much more lightly while holding speed like it has more power in each gear overall.
I'm always very skeptical of an online butt dyno claim but I've driven the same X for 16 years now and even above the WOT threshold there just seems to be more power than before. Looking back I should have tried to get one of the tuners when I was starting out with the mods.
I've had the tuner installed for a couple of months now, this isn't breaking news but it's a great upgrade even for just daily driving.
I tried out the regular tune first and then went to the mid-grade gas version, over time adjust the pedal response to low and raised the timing to 2+, mainly for chasing mpg's.
With the WOT restriction removed it's interesting how the limited slip reacts with wheel spin, we have a gravel road nearby that's uphill and I've had some fun turning off VDC and punching the throttle up it. Before the X would always let loose on one wheel, but now it has no problem letting both rear wheels fly for as long as I'm willing to hold the throttle open.
My highway mileage has crept up to around 18 and I think that's mainly due to how the cruise respond now. Before when I'd be on a hill the cruise would respond aggressively and go nuts on opening the throttle and downshifting, now it responds much more lightly while holding speed like it has more power in each gear overall.
I'm always very skeptical of an online butt dyno claim but I've driven the same X for 16 years now and even above the WOT threshold there just seems to be more power than before. Looking back I should have tried to get one of the tuners when I was starting out with the mods.