Patherine Zeta-Jones - The "Not My Pathy" Build

[durtyharry]

Long story short, picked up two 2001 pathys in order to give one to my sis. The second blue one (I thought i'd give to my sis) turned out to be a turd so instead I took everything good from the blue pathy and put it into the much cooler gold pathy.

Gold Pathy aka Patherine Zeta-Jones: 2001 SE Pathfinder. 5 speed manual, 4x4, rear LSD, VQ35DE, about 230K miles

The day I picked it up:

[durtyharry]

Never planned to buy two pathys but when it dawned on me that most of the parts would be interchangeable I just thought I'd do a few quick & easy things like seats and window switches etc.

That quickly went out the window as I kept digging deeper into Patherine. Here's what the blue pathy looked like. base model, auto, BUT had a much better looking (IMO) black/dark grey interior.













Whereas Patherine has this...









I mean I didn't hate it, but there was just sooo mcuh light tan + my sis has two doggos so figured black/dark grey would work out much better.

[durtyharry]

as previously stated, things snowballed



New shifter bushing and boot, cleaned, re-greased


Fresh honda goop for reinstallation


My (unsolicited) assistant - the neighbor's kid. He wouldn't listen to any I said such as "DONT TOUCH!" but was also able to repeat everything I said -_-


Copped a bumper with mud flaps and driver arch molding from a local pick-n-pull

[durtyharry]

Seat things. Patherine (SE model) had a trick driver seat with lumbar and two different height adjustments for the bottom cushion. But it had that awful tan cloth, what to do...



Stripping the grey seat


Re-assembly of driver SE seat with grey cloth


Lost one of the adjustment knob clips during disassembly so remade one from a paper clip






Painting the adjustment knobs grey


Completed seat. Grey cloth with SE adjustments 

[durtyharry]

Manual hubs per recommendation of the sb homies 







Front lower ball joints

[durtyharry]

ricer things 



This is a Garagestar license plate bracket from my miata bent to serve its new purpose in the world 














added a spacer and long bolt so the license plate would be more forward facing

[durtyharry]

Engine stuffs:

After cleaning


Before


After (yes that's a new coolant hose)


This vacuum hose is a pain since it goes to an actuator in the valley of the motor. Replaced the hose with new bulk vacuum hose.




Did a new thermostat just cuz




So many hoses and gaskets






Some marking on the head (was previously caked in grease), must mean something to a VQ nerd.


New plugs


NGK FOR LIFE


PCV valve 


This is how brittle some of the hoses were


hella vacuum hoses to replace


coming back together


lastly accessory belts

[durtyharry]

dash cam - power routed through the headliner, a pillar, dash, center console

[durtyharry]

fluids

this was Sta-Lube 75W90 Limited Slip Diff fluid




Did trans, transfer case, rear diff and front diff


Coolant flush was done after all the motor gasket/hoses were replaced


There was an annoying clunk when depressing the clutch pedal - could not figure it out so pulled the clutch pedal assembly


It's missing a spring and bushing here, but wasn't the source of the clunk
turned out it was the connection between the pedal lever and clutch master rod.
Threw some axle grease on it and it was a somewhat better

[durtyharry]

"final" product








Note the black steering wheel and associated trim pieces




Yes, I transferred just the armrests between the door cards






Note the bumper/arch molding is a lighter gold/champagne






Then the sis wanted to paint the bumpers, so I shared a few OE two-tone examples and she did this








i like it. Especially cuz my sis painted it hah

But thats it. A silly adventure into the R50 pathfinder world. But also got me pumped to work on my own turds (miata and E46). tbd

[mk3f.t.w.]

Wow! This thing came out really good. I feel like the armrest swap tied the two tone together on the interior. And the painted arches and bumpers works well on that car. That seems like one that can last a long time with the manual trans and such.

What was her other odd manual suv?

[deolio]

Jeez you put a lot of work into that thing!

[durtyharry]

Patherine went to Seattle...

[deolio]

11/10 dog content

[durtyharry]

 😳🥰🥰😎