Our 'new to us' 2000 X

[Darth Element]

This isn't so much of a build thread but more of a maintaining, enjoying, slightly modifying thread...

I lurked here at ExPo for about a year before joining when I owned our 'not too offroady' Honda Element. It was a great car, served us and our kayaking, fishing, camping lifestyle perfectly. Well, recently it was totaled when my wife was T-Boned (wife and baby in the belly are safe). So, moving on we wanted something less expensive, but larger; more truckish but still comfortable to travel in. After a bit of searching and back and forth we found a 2000 Nissan Xterra SE, Silver, auto, 89k miles for $6950. A bit of research and a test drive we found it was a decent deal and picked it up. Overall we are super pleased, very comfortable and the interior is perfect for us. We'll be taking a bit of a road trip tomorrow in it and I'll have some decent photos of the X then (no good ones yet).

I have a short(ish) want list for it:
1)Shocks (still deciding brand)
2)Calmini Roof Rack
3)Shrockworks front bumper, preferably something very low profile without the headlight protectors. There is no winch in my future, that I know of.
4)Homemade rear cargo tray on tracks for easy slide out loading.
5)Lots of maintenance and keeping it clean/running great

Our first order of business was a oil change, tire rotation, new air filter, and Lucas Deep Clean. I removed the side step rails and love that it looks taller and a bit more aggressive. It had a slight rattle in the exhaust, which I believe I fixed tonight being part of a corroded heat shield. I'm thinking it needs either tie rod ends or maybe control arm bushings due to a bit of back and forth in the steering wheel when you hit a bump at speed, but I'm gonna drive it a bit and see if it gets worse before I jump to any conclusions. And the only other thing I noticed is a very slight surge/'jumpiness' at highway speeds; my wife says I'm crazy and that she can't feel it, but I know its there. So we are gonna try a little Tank Dry and see if it may be a little moisture in the gas tank. I also researched it may be the distributer cap, which was done recently. We shall see.

Cosmetically its a pretty excellent, no dings, scratches or rust. I gave it a good detail today and also (common on these older cars) the headlights had a bit of yellowing. So my first pictures will be of the headlight restoration...

Turtle Wax Headlight Kit - $9.99 - so far I recommend it, took about an hour for both lights. Easy to do, and I am happy with the results.

As it sat...

After step 1...

After step 2 and 3...

Completed Headlight w/ Sealant...

I know, I'm missing a clip for the front grill, gonna order that here soon. But thats it for now, nothing too exciting but hopefully it will work out to be a great traveling vehicle for us. We have quite a few camping trips planned for next year and heres to hoping this vehicle works out perfectly.

:camping:

 

[drbandkgb]

Check out Gobi for the roof rack...
Check 4x4parts.com for shocks.. They have been the cheapest I have found for Rancho or Blistiens

Welcome to the Xterra world.. I own 2

 

[mortonm]

Looks good! Looks like the twin of my 2001 silver

Post up spme more pictures!

 

[Darth Element]

Thanks all for the tips..I will be checking out those suggestions.

Ended up skipping the short road trip and bought a 2007 Versa for the wife, so here are quick local photos from River Rd.

The more I look at it, I see a slight dip in the end of the front bumper on the passenger side, seems to be even more incentive to get the Shrockworks :smiley_drive:

 

[mortonm]

Wow looks rediculously clean for a 12 year old truck. Even the plastics don't look faded. Must have been kept indoors

 

[drbandkgb]

Also check out a few Xterra forums.. www.xterranation.org and clubxterra
Both are full of members in your area...


I once too was a element owner.. 2005 CK

 

[granitex1]

Welcome, and dont sell the tube work around the headlights short. mine have saved headlights/grill/hood on several occasions.

 

[stioc]

Great choice, congratulations! Tons of aftermarket stuff, just mind the timing belt maintenance and transmission cooler etc. As drbandkgb mentioned join those xterra specific forums to find out all you need to know about them.

 

[Darth Element]

Fixed those photos above, was moving stuff around in Photobucket.

Yup, in my 'net surfing prior to buying I found out about the timing belt, so prior to me picking it up I had the timing belt, water pump, drive belts and tensioner replaced. Thanks for the heads up!

I'll have to think about the bumper, still not sure which to go for yet. I also like the Calmini since you can put the cover over the winch mount; decisions I'll have to seriously ponder for a bit. First I want to get her handling and running right before I start adding on.

Anyone purchase or heard of the Nismo Shock kit that 4x4parts.com has? https://www.4x4parts.com/nissan/nismo-by-bilstein-shock-kit-p-6255.html

Mortonm - Thanks, I was impressed by the condition as well, the interior is as nice or better than the exterior.

 

[Allof75]

Clean, low mileage Xterra, Darth Element! Silver's one of my favorite colors (3 of my cars are silver) and it looks great on yours! The Xterra was my fallback if I couldn't find a Pathy, they're very nice, rugged, rigs.

You may want to look into the PML lifts (torsion crank and shackle lift) and from what I hear, those mudflaps tend to get torn off when off road. You're very lucky to have so much aftermarket support. As for the shocks, I am personally very happy with my Bilstein 4600s, though if I were you I'd determine if you're going to lift or not before you order. If you're not, I'd recommend the Bilstein 5100s for the front and the Bilstein 4600s for the rear. They have the same valving (correct me if I'm wrong) and to me strike the perfect balance between smoothness and controlled body motion on or off road.

Anyway, Nice X! Can't wait to see the mods!

 

[SlowCarFast]

Congrats on the new X! I've also got a 2000, mostly stock, with a lot more miles (around 160k). I recently replaced shocks with bilsteins and purchased from eshocks.com which was slightly cheaper than 4x4parts and included free shipping. I went with the 4600 (HD) up front and 5100 in the back. I don't really know much about the 5100 available for the front from 4x4parts, I don't think that was available 6 months ago when I bought mine. I know that the 5100s I used in the rear were available in more than one valving. 4x4parts doesn't really tell you on their website the bilstein part numbers for the shocks they are selling so I'm not sure which valving they use or any other specs about the shocks they sell.

I've read (on the interwebz, so you decide what that's worth) that the stock length rear shocks can limit downward suspension travel and provide a couple inches more compression than is necessary, a lot of folks say to get the shocks for the suspension lift from 4x4parts even if you have a stock truck. I went with a rear shock that compresses to about 16". From what I've read, anything higher than that would over compress the shock when it's on the bump stops, and less than that will limit downward travel. So far it's worked fine for me but I also don't get off road that much. These shocks should work stock or with a couple of inches of lift so I'm set if I want to lift later on. I don't know much about the nismo shocks but they would likely still limit travel (like I just discussed) and I'm not sure if they have the stiffer valving you can get with the 5100s and they cost almost the same. Not a good value to me.

There's also talk about the rear sway bar damaging the passenger rear shock when offroading (if you look under the truck you can see the potential for this) so a lot of people (including me) just remove it with little noticeable change in handling.

Just a few thoughts, I'm not a professional, I just think this is an awesome truck and have spent way too much time researching stuff. I don't have many offroad mods but I've done a good bit of different maintenance and I do the work myself. If you want more info about the stuff above or other maintenance items you're welcome to shoot me a PM. Have fun!

 

[Darth Element]

Bilsteins Ordered! Should be here next week at some point. I don't plan on lifting, but I would really like to get front bumper at some point so I went with the standard suggested HD's for the Xterra.

I've visited two shops and both say the front end is really tight, but I'm just not feeling it. Would the center link be a concern at this mileage? I have been doing some reading and searching on the other forums and don't see a whole lot about the front suspension other than tie-rod ends and issues in steering when lifting an Xterra in the control arms.

As far as the 'surge' issue I'm thinking it may be transmission oriented rather than motor oriented. Still digging though...

We shall see. Thanks all for the tips!

TheAlbatross - careful what you ask for, I may be sending you a few PM's. Haha.

 

[drbandkgb]

The center links can wear.. Its generally when you run larger tires..

If you feel slop in your steering its more than likely the center link.

 

[Darth Element]

I hope this doesn't sound crazy...but, just by adding the Bilsteins it feels like a different vehicle. Tighter steering, better braking, 90% of the steering 'wobble' is gone; I am amazed. This is my first used car in some time, so I am use to the vehicle being tight from the factory, it feels almost that good. I am going to take a look at the centerlink and get the tires rebalanced but so far....wow. Also, Eshocks.com has blazing fast free shipping and it was an easy transaction.

I removed the mud-flaps and straightened the front bumper. May have to only continue with the maintanence for now due to our first child being born in 3 weeks. First big purchase will be the Calmini roof rack @ $622 shipped for sure, I looked at the Gobi but at $1400 prior to shipping it's a bit out of my price range. All in due time.

Thanks all for the suggestions, they are greatly appreciated.

Edit: Also, new NGK plugs and NGK wires, plus a new Roto/Cap kit are in the mail. After asking around some think the surge/skip could be a miss under heavy acceleration/load. Looks like the PO used the ebay special tune up kit, so I figure I might as well replace that garbage.

 

[drbandkgb]

Edit: Also, new NGK plugs and NGK wires, plus a new Roto/Cap kit are in the mail. After asking around some think the surge/skip could be a miss under heavy acceleration/load. Looks like the PO used the ebay special tune up kit, so I figure I might as well replace that garbage.

Could be the distributor too... They tend to wear out 100-150k

Read up on the #6 plug... Its a mother to get to... Well really they all are