Project Cheapfinder2.0 is the second in a line of cheap Nissan Pathfinder vehicles I’ve built to use for offroad and overlanding adventures.
If you’re looking to upgrade your Nissan Pathfinder or any SUV on the cheap then look no further!
I have a long list of stupid projects planned for this 1995 Nissan Pathfinder including:
- 34″ tires on stock height (finished here)!
- Weld the rear end into a “lincoln locker” (finished here!)
- Idler Arm Brace (finished here!)
- Scrap Metal Winch Bumper
- $100 Winch Install
- Poor Mans Jeep XJ Spring 2″ Lift
- Re-Index Front Torsion Bars
- Scrap Metal Rock Sliders
- And whatever other dumb ideas we can come up with!
To start with I bought a beauty 1995 Nissan Pathfinder XE 4×4 with 330,000km on the odometer. It wasn’t starting very well, and it has a clutch problem, but both of those are common Nissan Pathfinder problems so we’ll address them as we go!
I loaded the old girl up on the car trailer and brought her home, with plans of stupid projects going thru my head.
Unlike Nissan Cheapfinder Project 1.0 – The Rust Bucket!
this WD21 came with insurance papers, and a bit more solid of a frame.
It was having a clutch problem, so I replaced the Clutch Master Cylinder, but then was having a really hard time bleeding the clutch, due to the terrible design with the master cylinder and the bleeder being in a very hard to reach location. After much messing around I decided to bypass the clutch dampener, you can find it on the passenger side firewall, its a pointless little piece of wizardry that is supposed to help, but more often that not hinders your clutch performance. I simply ordered a female to female M10 barb fitting and connected the two stock lines on either side of the clutch dampener. Problem solved!
Next up, was problems with the starter, problems being, Nissan Pathfinder starters SUCK. They are poorly designed and located directly underneath the oil filter. What that means is every time you remove your filter you dump oil on your starter, which leads to short starter life.
I pulled the starter, I got another starter from a friend, I tried to combine the two starters but found out that they were of different generations and nothing was compatible. I gave up on messing with the starter, pulled up Rock Auto and ordered a remand starter for Project Cheapfinder2.0.
If you’re needing help on removing and replacing a Nissan Pathfinder Starter, check out this video here:
Since the Cheapfinder is running its now time for fun projects and of course first up is, How to put 34″ Tires on a Stock Nissan Pathfinder!
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Found your channel and am hooked. I have a 1994 D21 SE-V6 4×4 that I love, but Nissans are becoming my nemesis with limited parts availability and no one working on them. What size tires can you fit with the re-indexing the torsion bar. I’m on stock 31-10.5×15’s and I’d like to fit 33-12.5×17’s
Cheers! The secret to putting larger tires on Nissans is stay skinny! Back in the day I had 35×12.5″ tires on the Pathmaker but that required a 3″ Body lift and a 3″ suspension lift and I still had to cut the fenders a bit. On Project Cheapfinder I’m currently running 34″x10.5″ tires with nothing more than a t-bar crank and about 1.5″ of fender trimming, you might want to check out the video I made about it! https://youtu.be/5K4jDd0VtMk