My 2015 Nissan Xterra Pro 4X Build

[six60six]

Intro Comments:

Hello there! Friends call me "six" and this is my build thread for the 5th Xterra I've owned since pre-ordering one of the first 700 SE's to ship in October of 1999. I've had an X (or 2) in the driveway every since. I am an Executive Creative Director, designer and professional photographer currently living in Pittsburgh PA but I split my time between PGH, NYC and SLC for work. I've done almost 900,000 miles in the seat of my Xterras over the past 20 years and finally decided the 15' Pro 4X would be going into the "forever garage" with my other toys. I just started building it out a few months ago once it hit 50k miles and was paid off. I'm not a mechanic, but am very mechanically inclined and use it as a means to get my hands dirty and escape my day to day corporate stress. I have done all the work up to this point myself, making good progress in my free time and weekends to get it to where it sits today. My goal is to have it finished by September 19' in order to make the trek out to Utah for a month of work and play.

Username: six60six

Make: Nissan
Year: 2015
Model: Xterra
Trim: Pro 4X
Color: Super Black

Purchase Date: July 2015

Factory Options:

• Leather Interior
• Rockford Fosgate Audio
• Fog Lights
• Auto-dim/compass mirror
• Reverse Camera
• Tow Package
• Rear cargo privacy cover
• Rear cargo organizer
• Side Molding
• Mud Flaps (Removed)
• Pro 4X Floor Mats

Legend:
Mark | Means
√ | Done!
> | In-progress
$ | Want
X | Removed/Destroyed

MODS

Suspension/Steering:

FRONT:
Lift: 3"
• √ Radflo 2.0 Coilovers with 700# Eibach springs set to 2" lift with Nisstec 1" top hat spacer
• √ Trimmed coil buckets
• √ PRG Upper Control Arms
• √ Moog Lower Control Arms with greaseable ball joints
• √ Moog Inner and Outer Tie Rods
• √ Timbren Bump Stops
• √ Moog Greasable Camber Bolts
• √ Super Pro Sway Bar Bushings

REAR:
Lift: 3"
• √ Radflo Emulsion Extended Shocks
• √ Old Man Emu Dakar Leaf Packs
• √ NissTec Adjustable Shackles Set to Middle
• √ NissTec Shock Skids
• √ NissTec U-bolt Flip Kit
• √ Timbren Active Off-road Bump Stops
• √ Super Pro Full Poly Bushing Kit
• √ Off-Road Gorilla Rear Differential Breather Mod
• √ 3 Degree Steel Shims

Engine/Exhaust/Drivetrain:

• √ m205 3.36 Front Differential
• √ Nissan OEM V8 Pathfinder Front CV Half Shafts
• √ Airflow Snorkel
• $ aFe Mach Force XP Cat Back Exhaust

Brakes:

• √ Raybestos Element 3 Brake Pads
• √ Raybestos Specialty Brake Rotors
• √ NissTec Stainless Steel Braided Lines - Front & Full Rear

Wheels:

• √ Stock 2015 Pro 4X 2-Tone Charcoal Rims Including Spare
• √ 285/75R-16 BF Goodrich K02
• √ Spidertrax 1.5" Wheel Spacers Front + Rear

Electrical:

• √ Odyssey 34r-pc1500t Battery
• √ Ultimate Battery Terminals with Top Post Adapters
• √ 10" 0 AWG Extended Battery Lead Wires (Battery to factory harness)
• √ Morimoto 2 Stroke 2.0 LED Headlights
• √ Morimoto XB LED Projector Fog Lights
• √ Morimoto X-VF LED Amber Front Turn Signals
• √ Morimoto XB LED Amber Marker Lights
• √ Morimoto X-VF LED Red Rear Turn Signals
• √ Morimoto X-VF LED Red Brake Lights
• √ Morimoto XB LED Red Third Brake Lights
• √ Morimoto Festoon XB LED Interior Lights
• √ Diode Dynamics XP80 LED Off-Road Roof Lights
• > Trigger 6 Shooter Bluetooth Wireless 6 Channel Relay
• √ Morimoto XBT Bluetooth RGB Controller
• √ Morimoto Profile Pixel RGB Rock Lights
• √ Goal Zero 400 Lithium Power Pack
• √ Goal Zero Boulder 100 Solar Panel

Fluids:

• √ Mobil 1 Synthetic Every 5000 Miles
• √ Nissan Genuine Matic-S (Transmission)
• √ Amsoil ATF (Transfer Case)
• √ Amsoil Severe Gear (Differentials)
• √ Motul RBF 660 Synthetic DOT 4 Brake Fluid

Interior:

• √ 2lb DOT Fire Extinguisher under passenger seat with modded Bracketeer mount
• √ WeatherTech Floor Liners - Front & Rear

Exterior:

• X Rear Passenger Door
• √ WeatherTech Front Window Visors
• > Painted Rear Bumper Corner Plastics - SEM Black Bumper Paint
• > Painted Side Moldings - SEM Black Bumper Paint
• > Painted Front Bucktooth Grill - Flat Black
• √ Front Fender Trim and Melt Mod
• √ ARB Awning 2000
• √ Tepui HyBox Roof Top Tent
• > Gobi Passenger Side Ladder
• √ Rockslide Engineering Spare Tire Rack Kit (Rotopax Mounts)
• √ Rotopax 2 Gallon Gasoline Pack x 2
• √ Rotopax 2 Gallon Water Pack x2

Armor:

• √ Hardcore Off-Road Front Bumper w/ Pre-Runner Bar
• √ Hardcore Off-Road Rear Bumper w/ Tire Carrier, Reinforced Hitch, Hi-Lift Mount, CB Mount
• √ Front Runner Slimline II Roof Rack
• √ White Knuckle Off-Road Sliders
• √ 4x4 Parts Aluminum Full Skid Plate Kit
• √ ARB m226 Rear Differential Cover

Recovery/Comms:

• √ Smittybilt X20 10,000lb Winch with Synthetic Line
• √ Factor 55 1.5 Fairlead
• √ Factor 55 Prolink
• √ Motormic 3/4" 57,000lb D-Ring Shackles
• √ Bubba Rope Gator Jaw 52,000lb Soft Shackles
• √ ARB CKMA12 Air Compressor with Bumper Mounted Chuck
• > Maxtrax Recovery Boards
• √ Midland MXT400 GMRS Radio

PHOTOS

The day after I bought the truck I drove it from Chicago to Moab. 4 Days later it made its first off-road trek, completing the 100 mile White Rim Trail in bone stock attire.

Fast forward 50k miles to May 2019. I managed to put a pretty good dinger in the rear passenger door on a rock while in Moab in April. Luckily X's are abundant in salvage yards and I found a complete door for $150. Swapped the harness, speakers and interior panels to get it back to sexy. This is where I decided to start the build, drained the rear diff and swapped the cover for the ARB, swapped the original Hankook 265's for BF Goodrich K02 285's.

Onto the suspension, which was tired after 50k miles. Sourced everything from PRG, Nisstec, OME and Radflo. All we're very helpful and quick to deliver. Longest wait was the shocks from Radflo which still only took 21 days from order to delivery.

Of course nothing ever goes totally smooth and the front LCA bolts were fully seized. 4 hours of cutting, grinding and swearing, they were finally out.

Since the truck started life in Chicago, went to Seattle and is now in Pittsburgh, it's seen it's share of crap weather which means rust is always a concern. While tearing things down I am also hitting all the frame welds with VHT Rust Convertor and then giving it a fresh coat of undercoating to help stop the cancer.

Next work was rebuilding the brakes. Full tear down of the calipers, new seals, guide pins and hardware along with a fresh coat of paint. Swapped the Napa Premium Pads and Rotors (which never felt great) to Raybestos Element 3 pads and Specialty rotors. Replaced all the rubber lines with braided stainless and did a full fluid flush to Motul RBF 660 DOT 4. Much better...

Also figured out a mounting solution for a fire extinguisher under the passenger seat incase I blow myself up.

 

[six60six]

Bumpers were built by Cory at Hardcore Offroad here in PA. Super nice guy and great fab skills.

Got the bumper mounted and the winch installed. Neither was easy. The bed liner finish on the hardcore bumper is so thick that it actually pushed the brackets beyond tolerance of going together. Ended up cutting the bed liner off where the tabs needed to come together and it was about as tight as possible without not fitting. Once everything was bolted up I just sealed everything with some Hurculiner spray and will probably do a few more coats over the next couple days.

The Smittybilt X20 mounted up fine on the winch bracket, but there is no way to attach the control box to either of the factory mounting points above the spindle or the motor so I had to get creative. Drilled some small holes through the bumper support and used 2" allen head bolts and spacers to mount the control box at an angle where you can just reach under the bumper to plug in or turn on the wireless remote. Also had to clock the clutch to the rear since the lever wouldn't clear the bumper when turned.

I ran all the wires and cut the battery leads down to length and then mounted them with the side post mounts of the Knu Konceptz battery terminals. These terminals are made for high power car audio systems but are great since they have an optional side post in addition to accepting 0 gauge, 4 gauge and 8 gauge which will help with future accessories. I used 0 gauge to run a short lead to the + harness and replaced the engine ground with a 0 gauge lead as well.

A little lunchtime dentist appointment with Dr. Dremel to fix it's buck teeth and bolted up the Factor 55 1.5 fairlead and shackles.

 

[Reaper XJ]

Sick! I love Xterras. I have always been a Nissan Fan. I was a tech for nissan for a while and had 2 300zx's.

 

[six60six]

Raingler roof net, I never realized there was so much room wasted up against the ceiling.

 

[six60six]

Pulled off the rear plastics, cleaned them with 409, soap & water and SEM Plastic Prep before spraying them with SEM Adhesion Promoter and satin black SEM Bumper Coating. Total of 8 coats and they are curing for the next 48 hours, but they should look good on the black truck. I did the actual step plate in Hurculiner for durability.

 

[six60six]

Got the newly painted corners mounted up and they look great. I have a new set of door trim I need to paint up this weekend and swap out to match, but with the satin black grille it'll all tie together.

Also, I got the stock roof rack off...wait for it...without spinning a single rivnut ::happy dance::
All because my new Front Runner full replacement showed up on my doorstep. The Front Runner was a super easy install, and is a very nicely made "kit" rack.

 

[six60six]

Got the Trigger Six Shooter bluetooth relay installed which is a pretty slick bit of kit. Allows you to not run wires for your switches into the cabin since everything is bluetooth controlled, which also means you can use the phone app to turn the lights on/off, dim, strobe or whatever you want. A big plus is that it monitors the battery and automatically shuts down if it drops below a preset voltage.

Mounted it to the top of the fuse box under the hood, sealed up the holes I drilled in the cover with silicone and grommets and ran the remote lead to the reverse lights circuit in the fuse box with a fuse tap so that it's ACC controlled when the key is on.

 

[Xcape Pod]

Intro Comments:

Hello there! Friends call me "six" and this is my build thread for the 5th Xterra I've owned since pre-ordering one of the first 700 SE's to ship in October of 1999. I've had an X (or 2) in the driveway every since. I am an Executive Creative Director, designer and professional photographer currently living in Pittsburgh PA but I split my time between PGH, NYC and SLC for work. I've done almost 900,000 miles in the seat of my Xterras over the past 20 years and finally decided the 15' Pro 4X would be going into the "forever garage" with my other toys. I just started building it out a few months ago once it hit 50k miles and was paid off. I'm not a mechanic, but am very mechanically inclined and use it as a means to get my hands dirty and escape my day to day corporate stress. I have done all the work up to this point myself, making good progress in my free time and weekends to get it to where it sits today. My goal is to have it finished by September 19' in order to make the trek out to Utah for a month of work and play.

Username: six60six

Make: Nissan
Year: 2015
Model: Xterra
Trim: Pro 4X
Color: Super Black

Purchase Date: July 2015

Factory Options:

• Leather Interior
• Rockford Fosgate Audio
• Fog Lights
• Auto-dim/compass mirror
• Reverse Camera
• Tow Package
• Rear cargo privacy cover
• Rear cargo organizer
• Side Molding
• Mud Flaps (Removed)
• Pro 4X Floor Mats

Legend:
Mark | Means
√ | Done!
> | In-progress
$ | Want
X | Removed/Destroyed

MODS

Suspension/Steering:

FRONT:
Lift: 3"
• √ Radflo 2.0 Coilovers with 700# Eibach springs set to 2" lift with Nisstec 1" top hat spacer
• √ Trimmed coil buckets
• √ PRG Upper Control Arms
• √ Moog Lower Control Arms with greaseable ball joints
• √ Moog Inner and Outer Tie Rods
• √ Timbren Bump Stops
• √ Moog Greasable Camber Bolts
• √ Super Pro Sway Bar Bushings

REAR:
Lift: 3"
• √ Radflo Emulsion Extended Shocks
• √ Old Man Emu Dakar Leaf Packs
• √ NissTec Adjustable Shackles Set to Middle
• √ NissTec Shock Skids
• √ NissTec U-bolt Flip Kit
• √ Timbren Active Off-road Bump Stops
• √ Super Pro Full Poly Bushing Kit
• √ Off-Road Gorilla Rear Differential Breather Mod
• √ 3 Degree Steel Shims

Engine/Exhaust/Drivetrain:

• √ m205 3.36 Front Differential
• √ Nissan OEM V8 Pathfinder Front CV Half Shafts
• √ Airflow Snorkel
• $ aFe Mach Force XP Cat Back Exhaust

Brakes:

• √ Raybestos Element 3 Brake Pads
• √ Raybestos Specialty Brake Rotors
• √ NissTec Stainless Steel Braided Lines - Front & Full Rear

Wheels:

• √ Stock 2015 Pro 4X 2-Tone Charcoal Rims Including Spare
• √ 285/75R-16 BF Goodrich K02
• √ Spidertrax 1.5" Wheel Spacers Front + Rear

Electrical:

• √ Odyssey 34r-pc1500t Battery
• √ Ultimate Battery Terminals with Top Post Adapters
• √ 10" 0 AWG Extended Battery Lead Wires (Battery to factory harness)
• √ Morimoto 2 Stroke 2.0 LED Headlights
• √ Morimoto XB LED Projector Fog Lights
• √ Morimoto X-VF LED Amber Front Turn Signals
• √ Morimoto XB LED Amber Marker Lights
• √ Morimoto X-VF LED Red Rear Turn Signals
• √ Morimoto X-VF LED Red Brake Lights
• √ Morimoto XB LED Red Third Brake Lights
• √ Morimoto Festoon XB LED Interior Lights
• √ Diode Dynamics XP80 LED Off-Road Roof Lights
• > Trigger 6 Shooter Bluetooth Wireless 6 Channel Relay
• √ Morimoto XBT Bluetooth RGB Controller
• √ Morimoto Profile Pixel RGB Rock Lights
• √ Goal Zero 400 Lithium Power Pack
• √ Goal Zero Boulder 100 Solar Panel

Fluids:

• √ Mobil 1 Synthetic Every 5000 Miles
• √ Nissan Genuine Matic-S (Transmission)
• √ Amsoil ATF (Transfer Case)
• √ Amsoil Severe Gear (Differentials)
• √ Motul RBF 660 Synthetic DOT 4 Brake Fluid

Interior:

• √ 2lb DOT Fire Extinguisher under passenger seat with modded Bracketeer mount
• √ WeatherTech Floor Liners - Front & Rear

Exterior:

• X Rear Passenger Door
• √ WeatherTech Front Window Visors
• > Painted Rear Bumper Corner Plastics - SEM Black Bumper Paint
• > Painted Side Moldings - SEM Black Bumper Paint
• > Painted Front Bucktooth Grill - Flat Black
• √ Front Fender Trim and Melt Mod
• √ ARB Awning 2000
• √ Tepui HyBox Roof Top Tent
• > Gobi Passenger Side Ladder
• √ Rockslide Engineering Spare Tire Rack Kit (Rotopax Mounts)
• √ Rotopax 2 Gallon Gasoline Pack x 2
• √ Rotopax 2 Gallon Water Pack x2

Armor:

• √ Hardcore Off-Road Front Bumper w/ Pre-Runner Bar
• √ Hardcore Off-Road Rear Bumper w/ Tire Carrier, Reinforced Hitch, Hi-Lift Mount, CB Mount
• √ Front Runner Slimline II Roof Rack
• √ White Knuckle Off-Road Sliders
• √ 4x4 Parts Aluminum Full Skid Plate Kit
• √ ARB m226 Rear Differential Cover

Recovery/Comms:

• √ Smittybilt X20 10,000lb Winch with Synthetic Line
• √ Factor 55 1.5 Fairlead
• √ Factor 55 Prolink
• √ Motormic 3/4" 57,000lb D-Ring Shackles
• √ Bubba Rope Gator Jaw 52,000lb Soft Shackles
• √ ARB CKMA12 Air Compressor with Bumper Mounted Chuck
• > Maxtrax Recovery Boards
• √ Midland MXT400 GMRS Radio

PHOTOS

The day after I bought the truck I drove it from Chicago to Moab. 4 Days later it made its first off-road trek, completing the 100 mile White Rim Trail in bone stock attire.

Fast forward 50k miles to May 2019. I managed to put a pretty good dinger in the rear passenger door on a rock while in Moab in April. Luckily X's are abundant in salvage yards and I found a complete door for $150. Swapped the harness, speakers and interior panels to get it back to sexy. This is where I decided to start the build, drained the rear diff and swapped the cover for the ARB, swapped the original Hankook 265's for BF Goodrich K02 285's.

Onto the suspension, which was tired after 50k miles. Sourced everything from PRG, Nisstec, OME and Radflo. All we're very helpful and quick to deliver. Longest wait was the shocks from Radflo which still only took 21 days from order to delivery.

Of course nothing ever goes totally smooth and the front LCA bolts were fully seized. 4 hours of cutting, grinding and swearing, they were finally out.

Since the truck started life in Chicago, went to Seattle and is now in Pittsburgh, it's seen it's share of crap weather which means rust is always a concern. While tearing things down I am also hitting all the frame welds with VHT Rust Convertor and then giving it a fresh coat of undercoating to help stop the cancer.

Next work was rebuilding the brakes. Full tear down of the calipers, new seals, guide pins and hardware along with a fresh coat of paint. Swapped the Napa Premium Pads and Rotors (which never felt great) to Raybestos Element 3 pads and Specialty rotors. Replaced all the rubber lines with braided stainless and did a full fluid flush to Motul RBF 660 DOT 4. Much better...

Also figured out a mounting solution for a fire extinguisher under the passenger seat incase I blow myself up.

I love your xterra! I got one too and it has treated me great. I have quite a few mods in common with you! Radflos are awesome and the company is great to work with! I'm gonna use your rig as a reference for some of the stuff to add to mine lol thanks for sharing!

 

[six60six]

I love your xterra! I got one too and it has treated me great. I have quite a few mods in common with you! Radflos are awesome and the company is great to work with! I'm gonna use your rig as a reference for some of the stuff to add to mine lol thanks for sharing!

Thanks! I need to post up the rest of the build pics but it'll be complete this weekend and I'm headed out west starting next week to put it through it's paces :)

 

[six60six]

Lighting & Roof Power

My goal was to keep the "essence" of the stock P4X roof lights, since I do have a soft spot for the retro look of the round lights as opposed to a big ass Millennium Falcon light bar up there. Between that and wanting to keep the stock functionality of the existing switch / high beam function in the cab, I had to get creative.

I decided I wanted to run (6) 100w round LEDs, each putting out around 7000 lumens and drawing 9 amps. So to run 6 lights, I needed to split the power into (2) 40amp circuits.

I did this by installing a Bussmann 100amp circuit breaker under the hood coming from the battery via 0 gauge wire. From there, I ran the wire around the back of the engine, through the existing firewall grommet and under the driver side of the dash. By pulling the A-Pillar trim, I was able to get enough room in the headliner to run a fish tape down the existing roof grommet (with some slight trimming) and fish the 0 gauge up to the roof.

Now that the wire pull was done, I built a custom power box to mount under the Front Runner rack and house the distribution blocks, relays and Blue Sea fuse blocks. I intentionally only ran (3) out of the (6) circuits on each fuse block so that I have some overhead in the future if I decide to reconfigure.

The tricky (not that hard with a multimeter) part was getting the relays to trigger off of the existing P4X roof light switch since it is a momentary switch that also reads the magnetic cover sensors on the stock lights in order to function. After deconstructing the stock roof light harness, I saw that it was 6 wires. (2) for the magnetic switches, (2) for the + and (2) for the - of the (2) stock lights. The magnetic switch plugs also share the - wire with light # 2 on the factory harness.

Using a Nissan 6 pin connector from wiringspecialties.com

I was able to wire the Blue and Yellow + wires on the harness to the relay switch terminals and the Pink and Green - wires to the common ground distribution block.

Now by splitting the lights into (2) banks of (3) lights on separate 40 amp circuits I am still able to control them all by turning on the high beams and hitting the stock "OR Lights" button.

 

[six60six]

Got my Tepui Hybox RTT and had to get creative on how to get it onto the truck. A couple hours and some 2x4's later and I had a gantry crane to assist in the heavy lifting. Since the Hybox is 165lbs I didn't want to mess with having to have 2 people put it up and take it down multiple times to get everything spaced out properly.

I ended up using the Front Runner quick release RTT mounts, since they sit higher and don't require any tools to attach the tent. There is less than 1/2" of room for working between to rack and the RTT so it seemed like the only practical solution.

Had to pull the tent back off and add (2) 3 ft sections of steel U-channel to reinforce the tent floor between the mounts since it seems to flex a bit under weight. Front runner sells a similar kit for $150, but for $30 I can do the same thing with parts from Home Depot.

 

[Buster4pres]

I love that you didn’t ditch the round roof lights like everyone seems to.

You don’t happen to have a picture of the fire extinguisher mount do you? I wanted to have something within arms reach but didn’t want to just throw it in the passengers door

 

[six60six]

I love that you didn’t ditch the round roof lights like everyone seems to.

You don’t happen to have a picture of the fire extinguisher mount do you? I wanted to have something within arms reach but didn’t want to just throw it in the passengers door

The mount is just "The Bracketeer" from here:

The BracketeerThe Bracketeer

The Bracketeer Car Fire Extinguisher Bracket provides a quick and secure solution to mount a fire extinguisher in most modern and classic vehicles. Perfect for modified and track day cars, commercial and emergency service vehicles, or anyone wanting the peace of mind of having a fire extinguisher w

www.thebracketeer.com

I just ditched the outer arms from the kit that usually attach to the seat rails and used (2) 3/8" Adel Clamps to clamp the center section of the bracket to the round bar that runs under the front of the passenger seat. It allows the seat to move completely forward and back and the extinguisher tucks under the seat when slid forward.

 

[JCWages]

I have a secret love for Xterras. Shhhh

 

[Xcape Pod]

Thanks! I need to post up the rest of the build pics but it'll be complete this weekend and I'm headed out west starting next week to put it through it's paces :)

Where are you heading out west?

 

[six60six]

Where are you heading out west?

I drove it from PA to CO then over to UT. I'm in UT for the next 10 days then headed down to AZ.

 

[UglyViking]

Great looking rig man. I like the hoist you setup, I'm gonna have to look into something similar myself.

 

[RoarinRow]

Wow that’s a lot of work! Great job! Love the Bluetooth module thingy.

 

[Xcape Pod]

I drove it from PA to CO then over to UT. I'm in UT for the next 10 days then headed down to AZ.

oh man I'm Jealous! I lived in Colorado for 3 years absolutely loved it there ! then the army said I had to go! have fun man don't go too wild in Utah! Moab likes to roll people over lol

 

[Max trails]

Amazing build! I got a Xterra too but it’s far from that. Inspiring !