Hi All

[For4byfour]

I've been a member on here for a few months now but have not really posted,

I bought myself a terrano for christmas and have slowly started setting her up for weekend missions,

so far I've put on some 31" Firestone Wilderness A/T's, Mudstuck snorkel, and factory bullar, along with a frew small things like upgraded bulbs, bigger battery, re-pluming the light washer motor to the window washers for more pressure to get the bigger chunks of mud off, removing rear speaker enclosures for more room for recovery gear and beer.

it's still the mr's daily driver (I've got a company car and there's nowhere for us to park a third vehicle and i'm not giving up going off road) so I have to take a bit of care while I'm on the tracks but I've been impressed where this thing can get and what it can do!

I've recently replaced the alternator after testing out the snorkel at woodhill park in some gnarley bog holes and looking for some advice on how to stop this from happening again and also need to replace r/r brake caliper as it's seized and pretty sure my r/f cv is on it's way out so I will be reading up on here and asking questions on how to, where to and who to see about these, so thanks in advance.

I'll try post some pics of the truck in different stages of modification as time goes on,

[For4byfour]

These photos are a few days after I bought her from Hamilton, with nothing but 1 rear shock bush needed for a warrant, Look at how straight and clean she is!

[coxsy]

if doing offroad them side steps will bend up fold ect , removing them would be a good idea

[For4byfour]

Hi Coxsy, I've had it off road almost every weekend I've had it and those side steps are rooted now, but I've kept them on because the have actually saved my sills and doors a few times from tree trunks, banks and rocks etc, but they will be coming off at some point to be replaced by sliders.

any other suggestions about what to do with it/to it are greatly appreciated.

thanks.

[lax2wlg]

Welcome, Cool Pathy, super clean

Preventative maintenance - the transmission is the only item really, then you can start modding, modding modding.

If you have an auto trans, the oil cooler will need to be cleaned thoroughly or ideally replaced with a bigger capacity one.

If you have a manual trans, you need to dump the oil thats in it, remove the gearstick shifter and fill it up with 5.1 litres of API-GL4 gear oil

[lax2wlg]

Then fit some recovery points, and Probably a good idea to get an idler arm brace too. Otherwise with your setup the factory steering will be fine.

The rest of the vehicle you can pretty much forget about other than basic maintenance. The cast iron engine will never die & the rear end is from a Patrol.

Check to see if you have an LSD, there will be an orange sticker on the rear diff. Nissan LSDs work exceptionally well. Also you will have rear discs, and probably have 4.6 gears too. All nice factory features in an offroad vehicle.

Next I would put on some manual hubs. The auto ones are fine, and being completely mechanical theres no troublesome vacuum or electric system to worry about, but they do have a habit of jumping out of 4x4 in reverse. This can be annoying and its nice to have 100% engagement all the time when off road.

Now to get the linked rear suspension to work, all you have to do is remove the rear sway bar for this much wheel travel


^^By the way that one was running Interco 34x9.5, 0" lift, factory ride height, factory steering, worked VG33, Nismo front LSD, rear spool and had the absolute shit beaten out of it without breakage

Same deal with the front. Remove swaybar to encourage the platform to twist and articulate. The 'flex' front to rear is a bit unbalanced, but very few factory setups (if any) are perfectly balanced. I have noticed that with the front sway bar removed and minor front susp droop mods, the flex balance is on par with a swaybar equipped radius arm setup such as you might find in a LandCruiser 80 or Patrol. People will laugh at this, which is cool.


^^100% factory, no mods whatsoever except removed swaybar, 33x10.5 KOs.

[lax2wlg]

Your wife probably won't appreciate the lack of swaybars, but whatever, its totally worth it

In terms of ongoing maintenance, you will need to get familiar with the front end. Datsun/Nissan were pioneers in 4x4 IFS & the system was designed to take a rodgering. The actual running gear is good and strong.

But its also 20+ years old and full of moving parts that are probably well worn already. So if you start hammering it off road, sooner or later things will start rearing their head. Suspension bushings, balljoints, rod ends etc.

Some people deal with it one thing at a time, & I think this is where a lot of people get frustrated with IFS. Especially when you add poor quality aftermarket parts that only last 6 months or so.

Personally I would do it all at once, ie once things start to get sloppy in the front, replace all 4 ball joints with the best quality you can find, and most of the front suspension bushes all at once. You can get top-quality parts delivered to NZ from rockauto.com and rebuild your whole front suspension for a few hundred clams.

Jesus, rant o rama

[zukmeista]

I've recently replaced the alternator after testing out the snorkel at woodhill park in some gnarley bog holes and looking for some advice on how to stop this from happening again

Stay as far away from woodhill mud as possible, that shit wrecks everything on your truck, been there done that.

[For4byfour]

awesome advice. thanks everyone for your input.

I've already got an aftermarket trans oil cooler mounted in front of the radiator, and from the paperwork I got with the truck it's been regularly serviced by Marshall transmissions in hamilton and is not due for its next for a while.

dead keen on the sway bar removal but I'd like to keep it road legal if possible. But things change.

[stovanovich]

Intercoolers are a great easy mechanical mod to do too.
Here's a pic of mine, Intercooler & Scoop from an Isuzu Bighorn. Love's cold mornings!

[lax2wlg]

^^ Clean install Rob.

Thats good about the trans cooler.

[For4byfour]

if i was just to remove just the rear sway bar would it have a huge effect on the on road handling? or is there not much point unless im removing both?

also is there anything that can be done to prevent my alternator eating itself when in deep water/mud?
i guess i do have 2 alternators now so i could just keep a rebuilt one on hand in the case that it happens again.

loving the idea of the intercooler stovanovich, is this just air to air? and is that a spray nozzle in red on the right?

I'll be keeping an eye out for manual front hubs so if anyone has some there getting rid of,

[stovanovich]

loving the idea of the intercooler stovanovich, is this just air to air? and is that a spray nozzle in red on the right?

Aha! Good spotting. It sure is, little method I used to help cool the air down when there isn't actively air running over it. That Sprayer is now actually set in the scoop itself, looks like a rainforest when its on. Works a treat too when you're getting ready to attack a big hill climb.

[For4byfour]

lax2wlg you mentioned front suspension droop mods, what do i need to get/do for this mod? any more travel would be nice, and thanks for the rockauto tip, great prices.

Aha! Good spotting. It sure is, little method I used to help cool the air down when there isn't actively air running over it. That Sprayer is now actually set in the scoop itself, looks like a rainforest when its on. Works a treat too when you're getting ready to attack a big hill climb.

is this running off a window washer pump by any chance? i like the idea but the mrs would loose her s*@t if i put a scoop on the bonnet,

im now in the process of finding another truck purely for off road, probably something cheap and small that i can Aframe around as i dont have the parking space for a big trailer (yet)

[stovanovich]

Off the headlight washer. The alternative to putting a scoop on would be to do front mount (which would be next to useless offroad due to getting covered with mud or one of the Subaru water to air ones.

There's Porter's road down near Rotorua way, not so muddy, more technical driving stuff as it's all pumice. Pretty good for Shiney's & Tect park in Tauranga (Woodhill sort of idea minus the sand)