Yeah, but did you shit-weld any Walmart garbage to the back of an SUV?

No but we did stay pretty busy.

Well, idle hands are the Devil's playground, junior . . .

Have you even seen DR's truck, hosebag? Damn thing has spent time on its side. I don't think a few light tabs are gonna' hurt anything...

BTW, what's wrong w/ cheap lights from Wally World, for backup lights? Why go out and spend hundreds of dollars on freaking backup lights? Damn yuppies. You got $$ growing out your ass or something? In the real world, offroaders make do w/ what they've got, and they buy as much as they can afford. Show me 1 piece of chrome on a real offroading truck... You won't find it. Why? 'Cause that'd be a waste of money.

And, his welds weren't shit welds. From the looks of it, he didn't blow through the sheet metal. They aren't too boogered, either. Odds are, they're from flux core, which if you knew anything about welding, spits up slag like a mother. It's hard to get a pretty weld w/ flux core. So unless you're a master of welding, shut your pie hole.

All these people ragging on this kid 'cause he put lights on the rear hatch? Heaven forbid...

He's fair game for getting an X stuck in a parking lot, I'll grant you that. But the light mounting, well hell... Sounds like most of y'all would get freaked if a little shopping cart dinged your door, and go repaint the whole truck.

Since it seems everybody has so much extra money, and so much damn knowledge of things, how about somebody sending me a few thousand dollars, and a few designs for my truck, so it can keep up w/ all of the mall-crawling geniuses around here..

as i tell people all the time... THE INTERNET ISN'T REAL.

what that means is that u gotta take what people type w/ a grain of salt. they mean nothing and say everything. this kid welds some lights to his X and it becomes the end of the world. hilarious.

THE INTERNET ISN'T REAL.

unless you are going to fly out and weld the lights on for him free of charge do yourself a favor and STFU.

I'm a Yuppie. That is so awesome. I am shitting gold pieces as we speak.

Send me some asshole.

What me to clean'em up first.

That makes a few times that you've mentioned your distain for mall crawling Xterra owners. I have noticed that there is this general sentiment from the other boards like AC and NOR and others that XOC is full of softies and the other boards are the "hard core" offroaders.

The same "hard core" offroaders that come on here and complain that a performance 10 leaf leaf pack at $400-500 is too expensive. Damn. Just imagine how much it would cost to link it.

I've yet to see a cage on any of these "hard core" offroad rigs. So please get off the high horse.

My mall crawler has been on a racetrack and since then has run the Barstow race course at speed. I have replaced body panels and fenders on my minivan. I have cut off the whole front end and replaced it. And you know what?

IT DOESN"T LOOK LIKE SHIT!

Who ever said that modifications have to be ugly hackjobs?

If someone wants to subject themselves to putting pictures of their vehicle for the entire universe to critique over the internet, the reality is that people are going to give their opinions.

The consensus here seems to be that there might have been about 10 different options for mounting these lights that would have looked less like shit then welding them to the hatch.

As far as all of these "mall crawlers" keep in mind that this site has at least 10 times the members of the other Nissan truck and offroading sites on the net. There is more of a mix here. That's what happens when you have 10,000+ members as opposed to 150 that consider themselves "hard core."

NOW THATS HARDCORE BABY

Oyyy this is still going.... Sure he mounted his lights in a way most of us would not, and he has some dangerous pics and yes the whole parking lot incident is HILARIOUS!!!

Holy hell let this thing die already.

I know of one of those "other" boards that goes through the database every so often and deletes users who haven't signed on in eons. This site is no more active than several of the others.

But this isn't a site war. Despite a large group of members here that are complete asses, I still like this site and contribute where I can on the tech stuff, and the debates (like this one) are fun.

Socal, your mods are pretty. OK. You paid through the nose for that Stage 5 stuff though. You couldn't/wouldn't have done it yourself. There are those of us who don't wait for the bolt on mods to be released...we fab it ourselves.

That said, no...I don't have any light tabs welded to my sheetmetal..... :rolleyes:

Actually, parking lots are private property. If something should happen, ie...damage to lighting fixtures, or in your case, digging your hitch into the pavement, you are responsible for fixing it. Also, unless you were doing school related functions or functions pertaining to the parking lot you were in, you were technically tresspassing.....

You're such a fucking idiot!!

And once again, you call us pussies for not doing your so-called "real" off-roading.....Um...you were in a fucking parking lot!!! Where the hell were you off road?!? Also, why do you run stock trucks and claim to be an all-pro at off roading?!? I'd pay money to see you in a rock crawling competition, and see your truck roll on top of yourself and rid the world of your stupidity!!

I was going to college and getting myself an education!! As far as working on my car....If I couldn't do it (which I could do just about everything on it), I brought it to someone that could, and paid to have it done properly. How is that different from now?!? Um....it isn't.

What board is as active as this one?

None of the Nissan Truck/Xterra boards I'm aware of are even close to this active...

"Pretty" That sounded just a little bit condescending.

Just to keep things in perspective:

I don't know of anyone who has designed a home built lift kit for the X or Frontiers on any board. Now take it one step further and are there any home built kits that increase suspension travel significantly?

"we fab it ourselves"

Do you really?

Please correct me if I'm wrong. I haven't seen any home fabbed upper arms, lower arms and the home fabbed steering kits I have seen were hack jobs. I do know of some home built modifications done to stock steering and integration with the SLR center link.

That's about it.

I don't know a lot of people who have the experience or the knowledge of ackerman angle and geometry coupled with the expereince to put it to metal , including myself, that I would trust with my life and the lives of my family. AFAIK 99% of everyone who has ANY lift at all bought it from someone. And that's just to clear tires.

I didn't wait for SLR introduce a "bolt-on" kit. I pushed him to get it going so that I could get it on my truck. As far as being bolt on, yes. The arms use stock pivots. The shock mounts on the frame have to be cut off and new ones welded on so there is some fabrication required.

Let's get back to these amazing home fabricators and hard core off roaders. Let me see some gutted interiors , pulled dashes ,roll cages and fuell cells along with some home built suspension. We're just really now starting to see SAS's on some more recent Nissan models.

Trimming fenders and cutting the trucks body doesn't make anyone a fabricator. It's an art and best left to experts.

My real point is that all the ragging on XOC as the pussified version of a Nissan off-road site is really miss directed. There aren't that many "hard core" offroaders that run Nissans at all and when it really comes down to it Nissans are a joke in the eyes of true "hard core" off roaders.

It's the same in the desert racing and pre-runner world. Traditionally they have been undebuilt and under powered. Toyota and Ford have fun away with the market. Built Nissans are rare and few and far between. I know of two Nissan trucks running or that have recently run in MDR and a Frontier that might be in the works as a Stock 7 truck. I've yet to see a Nissan compete in any rock crawling class.

That simple fact that they are so rare really reflects that there are few people who have really built a Nissan rig that truly excelled in it's chosen off-road discipline.

No matter what board you read.

that brought a tear to my eye...great speech, or shall i say...nevermind.

Wow. I've seen several SAS'd Nissan's, that were done by people, by themselves... Aren't those "home-fabbed lift kits"? They surely weren't bolt-on kits, and they surely didn't have somebody else come up w/ the design from scratch for them. I'd say you just insulted quite a few people w/ that comment...

I've never once said that lifting and/or modding your vehicle can't be pretty. Hell, if you've got the skills to make it functional AND pretty, then by all means, do that! But function comes before form. I don't care how pretty something looks, if it can't perform, then it's a waste of $$.

My comments against "mall-crawling" Xterras are the same as what I'd say against mall-crawling Jeeps. There's way too many pussies driving them that think they're badass because they put on a grill guard and a body lift. If there weren't so many of these mall crawlers out there, I wouldn't comment. But there are, so I do.

And then to see these same sort of people start ragging on a guy because he did something practical to his rig, albeit, not pretty, just pisses me off. Heaven forbid he actually do something that's functional, first, and worry about the asthetics second. Would people be so critical if he had made some pretty light bar, w/ bolt-on brackets that went on the rear of the truck? Probably not. More than likely, they would have complimented him about how "cool" that looks... But no, he went the functional, cheap way, and just welded them on. So it looks like shit. Do the lights work? Yeah. That should be the #1 concern in any mod. Does it serve a purpose. In this case, yeah, it does.

If you don't like being called a mall-crawler, then don't act like one. SoCal, it appears that you're not one. So why do you feel as though I was directing that towards you?

i just read every post in the last 13 pgs! ... it took me over 1/2 hr.

I have soo much to say.. but i don't wanna even jump in on this one. HAHA

Nice Thread.

Well, our crew here in AZ has just about completed our 5th SAS project. All dramatically improves suspension performance in the rough. Some with leaves, some with coils. Honestly, we've given up wasting time on IFS for rock crawling. IFS is better suited to high speed desert stuff.

I don't have an internal cage because I have a regular cab truck, and I barely fit in it. I don't see the need when the bulk of our wheeling is low speed crawling. A truck flops over, we pull it back up and keep going. We did that with mine a couple years back.

Just don't assume that because you aren't fabbing stuff that there aren't others out there who are. Good stuff. Not MVM hack jobs.

desert _rat...that picture of you like 4 of ur guys' rigs parked in someones driveway...is like one of my favorite pictures...

Who you calling a "mall-crawler" then?!? I haven't done ANY lift mods to my truck. I added MTs and I for one, beat the ever-loving shit out of my rig......OFF ROAD!! At the same time, I also try to maintain it like my daily driver. I take pride in what I drive. I'm no fucking mall-crawler(granted, it is my daily driver), and I'm flat out saying his setup looks like shit. He isn't getting ragged on so much for the way he welded it on, but for other things....STUPID things....he has done in addition to a hack job. Badercarma is going for function, not form. Thats his choice....cool. He's getting ragged on for his stupidity in snowhill crawling with stock tires, step-rails, 3 mudflaps not 4, being pulled out of a snow bank by a car, and too many other things to list. He's even gone so far as calling people on here people that don't know what off-roading is!! He's a fucking tool!!!

I for one, would go with form AND function, not one or the other. Thats what differentiates a craftsman from a handy man. And from what I've seen on this site, most of the rigs here are done by people that want both form AND function.

Really? I've seen very few people around here that make form AND function high priorities. The majority I've seen would balk at scratching the paint, would balk at drilling a hole through sheet metal to attach anything, think a brush guard will protect anything, and actually think the more lights up top, the better offroading they can do.

Please.

At any rate, there's no reason to argue. Some people think it has to be pretty in order to function. Others think it damn well better function, long before the prettiness is even considered. And others think that if you can't make it functional AND pretty, then there's no reason to do it all. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

That's the beauty of America... I can flat out disagree w/ you, and it doesn't matter one bit.

I went over the curb at the mall the other day. I didn't put it in 4 lo cause I don't know how.

I am just not hard core and I don't want to scratch up my truck.