Welcome to CF, I hope you get to drive this one a while! Looks like you have some serious work to do to get all that swapped over.
Geek Mobile II
Username: SDMF_Reaps
Year: 2012
Make: Nissan
Model: Frontier
Trim: PRO-4X
Color: Knight Armor
Mods: Horns
Interior: Stock luxury package
Exterior: ARE MX tuck cap with walk-in door and headliner
Drivetrain: Automatic
Suspension & Tires: PRG Advanced 4x4 kit with 10 leaf race pack in the rear instead of AAL. Firestone Ride-Rite Airbags
Armor: Stock
Performance: Magnaflow 12580
Gear and Other: Cert bag in back seat, Amateur radio station dual band antenna and Hi-Q 4/80 MC-2 screwdriver antenna
In Progress: See Below
Hi. Here is a little history. I'm on my third Frontier. The first was an '01. I had that for 6 years or so and was thinking about doing some mods and then finally decided that it would be better for me to get a Gen2. So I did.
The '06 Frontier was a nice upgrade. I did have a few warranty issues but everything seemed to be going well. I had just gotten the truck where I wanted it for this coming winter and on 06-27-12 a cell phone driver ran a stop sign and totaled it out. :thatswck:
Yesterday I drove the new ride home for the first time! I figured I better get a pic before it gets totaled this time.
Now I need to get the '06 home so I can start stripping stuff off of it.
This thread will probably get updated slowly, but it'll get done.
What to expect... For sure you will see a PRG Advanced 4x4 lift with race pack install, exhaust, Pioneer AVHP4200-DVD (I may upgrade that instead of swap it), speakers (can't remember what I had in the doors), Amateur radio station, hypertech inline speedometer calibrator, ARE truck cap, Hi-lift mount & HID reverse lights (hope they survived). Also on the short list are the Goodyear Duratrac's that I had on the '06. These may wait until winter. I am also thinking that if the wheels are still straight I might use both sets as a summer/winter type thing. That is all I can remember off the top of my head.
Currently I'm also contemplating a front hitch, winch, some type of bed mount to secure the winch while not in use and dynamat or something similar to the entire cab (doors, floor, roof, rear wall & the a & b pillars (might be a bit overkill)).
My niece called the '06 'Geek Mobile' because of my amateur radio. So I have already dubbed the '12 'Geek Mobile II'.
Enjoy!!
Year: 2012
Make: Nissan
Model: Frontier
Trim: PRO-4X
Color: Knight Armor
Mods: Horns
Interior: Stock luxury package
Exterior: ARE MX tuck cap with walk-in door and headliner
Drivetrain: Automatic
Suspension & Tires: PRG Advanced 4x4 kit with 10 leaf race pack in the rear instead of AAL. Firestone Ride-Rite Airbags
Armor: Stock
Performance: Magnaflow 12580
Gear and Other: Cert bag in back seat, Amateur radio station dual band antenna and Hi-Q 4/80 MC-2 screwdriver antenna
In Progress: See Below
Hi. Here is a little history. I'm on my third Frontier. The first was an '01. I had that for 6 years or so and was thinking about doing some mods and then finally decided that it would be better for me to get a Gen2. So I did.
The '06 Frontier was a nice upgrade. I did have a few warranty issues but everything seemed to be going well. I had just gotten the truck where I wanted it for this coming winter and on 06-27-12 a cell phone driver ran a stop sign and totaled it out. :thatswck:
Yesterday I drove the new ride home for the first time! I figured I better get a pic before it gets totaled this time.
Now I need to get the '06 home so I can start stripping stuff off of it.
This thread will probably get updated slowly, but it'll get done.
What to expect... For sure you will see a PRG Advanced 4x4 lift with race pack install, exhaust, Pioneer AVHP4200-DVD (I may upgrade that instead of swap it), speakers (can't remember what I had in the doors), Amateur radio station, hypertech inline speedometer calibrator, ARE truck cap, Hi-lift mount & HID reverse lights (hope they survived). Also on the short list are the Goodyear Duratrac's that I had on the '06. These may wait until winter. I am also thinking that if the wheels are still straight I might use both sets as a summer/winter type thing. That is all I can remember off the top of my head.
Currently I'm also contemplating a front hitch, winch, some type of bed mount to secure the winch while not in use and dynamat or something similar to the entire cab (doors, floor, roof, rear wall & the a & b pillars (might be a bit overkill)).
My niece called the '06 'Geek Mobile' because of my amateur radio. So I have already dubbed the '12 'Geek Mobile II'.
Enjoy!!
1 - 17 of 17 Posts
Air horn install
Ok,
I had some time today so I decided to install my air horns on the truck.
I had a stebel nautilus and a nautilus compact truck horn on my '01. I never did put them on the '06 so today it was time for some new horns on the '12. On the new truck I planned to install the nautilus and two truck horns.
So first I removed the grill and did some test fitting of the horns. Once I was happy I went to work.
So I knew how I wanted to do the wiring and that was the next order of business. I had planned on using a relay and tapping into the OEM horn for a trigger.
This time around I decided to retain the stock horn, why not it's just more volume right! So I removed the horn and cut the wires that connect the two horns then spliced in my control lines. All connections are crimped and soldered where applicable.
Next I needed to make a harness. First off was power from the battery to the relay. It is always important to have a fuse inline and as close to the battery as possible. If not the line could short to ground and start a fire. We don't want to be burning down our new truck now do we!
Next was power from the relay to the horns and from the horns to ground. The star washer is used with the ring terminal to ground to the frame behind one of the horns.
Here is a view of the three horns.
The top center horn is mounted sideways because I couldn't find a better place for it. It is recommended that the horns be mounted with the opening facing down. Hopefully this won't become a problem. Also in order to mount the top horn I had to move the thermometer sensor to the left. Luckily there was already a square hole there the same size I needed. The hole I used to mount the horn had to be drilled out as well.
In another view shot from the passenger side you can see the relay near the bottom left of center.
All images uploaded with ImageShack.us
Well that's it now I'll be scaring deer and pheasants off the road again. With the stock horns only I could almost hear them snickering at my while they remained steadfast in the center of my lane.
Ok,
I had some time today so I decided to install my air horns on the truck.
I had a stebel nautilus and a nautilus compact truck horn on my '01. I never did put them on the '06 so today it was time for some new horns on the '12. On the new truck I planned to install the nautilus and two truck horns.
So first I removed the grill and did some test fitting of the horns. Once I was happy I went to work.
So I knew how I wanted to do the wiring and that was the next order of business. I had planned on using a relay and tapping into the OEM horn for a trigger.
This time around I decided to retain the stock horn, why not it's just more volume right! So I removed the horn and cut the wires that connect the two horns then spliced in my control lines. All connections are crimped and soldered where applicable.
Next I needed to make a harness. First off was power from the battery to the relay. It is always important to have a fuse inline and as close to the battery as possible. If not the line could short to ground and start a fire. We don't want to be burning down our new truck now do we!
Next was power from the relay to the horns and from the horns to ground. The star washer is used with the ring terminal to ground to the frame behind one of the horns.
Here is a view of the three horns.
The top center horn is mounted sideways because I couldn't find a better place for it. It is recommended that the horns be mounted with the opening facing down. Hopefully this won't become a problem. Also in order to mount the top horn I had to move the thermometer sensor to the left. Luckily there was already a square hole there the same size I needed. The hole I used to mount the horn had to be drilled out as well.
In another view shot from the passenger side you can see the relay near the bottom left of center.
All images uploaded with ImageShack.us
Well that's it now I'll be scaring deer and pheasants off the road again. With the stock horns only I could almost hear them snickering at my while they remained steadfast in the center of my lane.
5
First antenna install
Hi all,
Today I started work on the radio system I will be installing in the truck. So my first and easiest job to tackle was an antenna install.
I had a Comet SBB-7 on a lip mount made by Comet. It was mounted to the top of the rear doors (hinge side).
![]()
This was good and I could make it into the repeaters in the area but I always felt as though I wasn't getting good bonding to the door. I had thought about making a jumper from the mount to the door. The idea being I would have a better ground plane under the antenna. But that idea was squashed when my truck was killed.
So on to the present. The new truck has a roof rack, I'm not sure if I like it or not. I'll have to see what it looks like when I get the truck cap on. But for now I will assume that the rack is going to stay.
With that in mind I decided to mount my antenna on the front cross bar. I drilled a 3/4" hole dead center and installed the NMO mount.
I ran the cable through the crossbar. I had a problem with the aforementioned Comet lipmount. I had planned on reusing the cable and NMO mount but somewhere in the process the center conductor was broken from the mount and I had some trouble keeping it tight on the lip mount so it was a bit deformed as well. So I was pissed and didn't take any pictures of the cable routing. But it should be simple enough to imagine a couple holes being drilled. Here is a picture with the cable exiting the cross bar.
I would prefer to keep the cable hidden completely but I'm cutting corners a bit for now. This can all be redone when I get the testes to drill a hole in the roof LOL!
Zip tying the cable to the rack tube and jumping into the door is the second short cut and a very bad idea for routing the cable. It will just have to do for a while.
Here is a picture of the door seal. I jumped over it and then behind the plastic cover of the B-pillar. Also a terrible idea.
Edit: Somehow this picture got really big. I'll re-upload it and replace it at a later date.
I jumped out at the bottom of the pillar and for now left it there. Once the ham radio is installed it will go under the weathertech liner and under the front seat to the radio. For now it is over the liner and to the scanner in the cup holder.
Now the cable was cut to length and the end crimped on. Usually I solder but they had already grabbed me a crimp on connector and I just happen to have a crimper LOL.
Now it's the moment of truth. Time to plug the scanner in and see if I can get a signal this time. Everyone cross you fingers.
Full signal from the weather station! Better than yesterday...
The SBB-7 is very tall, no more going through drive thru's, car washes or side streets with low hanging trees.
All images uploaded with ImageShack.us
Of course I'm used to that. If you stick around you'll see my HI-Q in a later post. It tops out at 13'6".
I'm very happy with the install for now. The signals coming into the scanner appear to have the same quality as the antenna on the roof of my house. But conditions could have just been good at the time of testing.
Once the radio is installed I'm hoping to hit the repeaters better due to the fact that I actually have some metal under it and directly connected. Not the lossy connection the lip mount provided. I am also considering some bonding straps between the cross bar and the tubes to increase the metal under the antenna. We'll just have to see about that.
Next on the list is going to be the stock FM antenna. I plan to replace that with a SBB-224 that I had on the other rear door of the '06. The idea will be to route the cable in the same way the stock cable goes and then have a splitter go to my scanner and to the AM/FM plug on the stereo. Since they are both receive only this will not be a problem.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned!
Hi all,
Today I started work on the radio system I will be installing in the truck. So my first and easiest job to tackle was an antenna install.
I had a Comet SBB-7 on a lip mount made by Comet. It was mounted to the top of the rear doors (hinge side).
This was good and I could make it into the repeaters in the area but I always felt as though I wasn't getting good bonding to the door. I had thought about making a jumper from the mount to the door. The idea being I would have a better ground plane under the antenna. But that idea was squashed when my truck was killed.
So on to the present. The new truck has a roof rack, I'm not sure if I like it or not. I'll have to see what it looks like when I get the truck cap on. But for now I will assume that the rack is going to stay.
With that in mind I decided to mount my antenna on the front cross bar. I drilled a 3/4" hole dead center and installed the NMO mount.
I ran the cable through the crossbar. I had a problem with the aforementioned Comet lipmount. I had planned on reusing the cable and NMO mount but somewhere in the process the center conductor was broken from the mount and I had some trouble keeping it tight on the lip mount so it was a bit deformed as well. So I was pissed and didn't take any pictures of the cable routing. But it should be simple enough to imagine a couple holes being drilled. Here is a picture with the cable exiting the cross bar.
I would prefer to keep the cable hidden completely but I'm cutting corners a bit for now. This can all be redone when I get the testes to drill a hole in the roof LOL!
Zip tying the cable to the rack tube and jumping into the door is the second short cut and a very bad idea for routing the cable. It will just have to do for a while.
Here is a picture of the door seal. I jumped over it and then behind the plastic cover of the B-pillar. Also a terrible idea.
Edit: Somehow this picture got really big. I'll re-upload it and replace it at a later date.
I jumped out at the bottom of the pillar and for now left it there. Once the ham radio is installed it will go under the weathertech liner and under the front seat to the radio. For now it is over the liner and to the scanner in the cup holder.
Now the cable was cut to length and the end crimped on. Usually I solder but they had already grabbed me a crimp on connector and I just happen to have a crimper LOL.
Now it's the moment of truth. Time to plug the scanner in and see if I can get a signal this time. Everyone cross you fingers.
Full signal from the weather station! Better than yesterday...
The SBB-7 is very tall, no more going through drive thru's, car washes or side streets with low hanging trees.
All images uploaded with ImageShack.us
Of course I'm used to that. If you stick around you'll see my HI-Q in a later post. It tops out at 13'6".
I'm very happy with the install for now. The signals coming into the scanner appear to have the same quality as the antenna on the roof of my house. But conditions could have just been good at the time of testing.
Once the radio is installed I'm hoping to hit the repeaters better due to the fact that I actually have some metal under it and directly connected. Not the lossy connection the lip mount provided. I am also considering some bonding straps between the cross bar and the tubes to increase the metal under the antenna. We'll just have to see about that.
Next on the list is going to be the stock FM antenna. I plan to replace that with a SBB-224 that I had on the other rear door of the '06. The idea will be to route the cable in the same way the stock cable goes and then have a splitter go to my scanner and to the AM/FM plug on the stereo. Since they are both receive only this will not be a problem.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned!
8
Side by side comparison
I parked the new truck next to the old one to steal some parts so I took the opportunity to take some pics.
First a little background. The '06 has a PRG advanced 4x4 kit installed. For the rear I went with a full race pack instead of the add a leaf. It also has Goodyear Duratrac's that are 285/75R16. The '12 is stock for now. As soon as I get replacement parts from Greg I'll get to swapping stuff over.
Now for the pics. Never mind the crappy garage in the background. It needs to be replaced LOL!
Then I opened up the doors to see the difference.
I then measured to the fender flares to see what the real difference was. The '06 measured in at 38.25" in the rear and 36.5" in the front. The '12 came in at 35" rear and 34.5 front.
I'm not sure how accurate the '06 measurements are because of the damage to the passenger side, but it's an interesting comparison none the less.
When I do the swap to the new truck I might jack up the preload to 2.5" up front. We'll see what I get out of a direct swap first.
I parked the new truck next to the old one to steal some parts so I took the opportunity to take some pics.
First a little background. The '06 has a PRG advanced 4x4 kit installed. For the rear I went with a full race pack instead of the add a leaf. It also has Goodyear Duratrac's that are 285/75R16. The '12 is stock for now. As soon as I get replacement parts from Greg I'll get to swapping stuff over.
Now for the pics. Never mind the crappy garage in the background. It needs to be replaced LOL!
Then I opened up the doors to see the difference.
I then measured to the fender flares to see what the real difference was. The '06 measured in at 38.25" in the rear and 36.5" in the front. The '12 came in at 35" rear and 34.5 front.
I'm not sure how accurate the '06 measurements are because of the damage to the passenger side, but it's an interesting comparison none the less.
When I do the swap to the new truck I might jack up the preload to 2.5" up front. We'll see what I get out of a direct swap first.
2
Hi-Q 4/80 MC-2 Install
Well I have installed the high frequency screwdriver antenna and it is working just as good as it was before my accident. I did the install on 09-09-12 but didn't get around to posting about it. So here we go!
I removed the hitch and antenna mount from the '06. Here it is on the ground. What you see is the hitch with my antenna mount bolted on and extending out the driver side. The coax and power for the antenna are run through the wire loom coiled on the ground.
The force of the accident combined with the length of the antenna was enough to bend the plate that the antenna bolts to.
After bolting the hitch up I used a couple of crescent wrenches to straighten it out.
I had also made several grounding straps for the '06. They will all transfer over however I only installed two of them on this day. They will be installed in each corner of the box and the rear corners of the cab then to the frame. The idea is that the body is rubber mounted, I want to electrically bond the body to the frame. The antenna is actually only half of the system. The other half of the antenna is the truck.
With the hitch mounted you can see two of the straps. One bonding my antenna mount to the frame and the other bonding the rear corner of the box to the frame. The passenger side box corner is done the same way.
I followed the factory harness on the driver side frame rail up under the drivers seat, ziptying the wire loom every foot or so. I brought the wiring in through a hole that seems like it was put there for this very reason.
Here is a pic under the drivers seat. I have ziptied the wires together to keep them somewhat organized. The turbo tuner is for the screwdriver antenna and allows my to have one button tuning. The alternative would be watching the SWR while holding a momentary switch until it drops to an acceptable level. Not ideal unless stopped on the side of the road.
Never mind the white audio cable and black power cable. They go to this speaker which hasn't found it's permanent home yet.
This speaker is very nice in the mobile environment. It has built in DSP that is used to eliminate some of the static from HF listening. It is very effective.
While working on this project I decided to update the battery clamps. I had these on my '06 and liked them. The ground was a premade cable. I cut the original so I could reuse the Hall sensor.
And the finished product...
I am missing pictures of the remote head, mic hanger and now my truck cap. It's too dark already so I'll try tomorrow. I did manage to take one artsy fartsy pic before I packed up for the day.
All images uploaded with ImageShack.us
It's starting to feel like my truck again!
Well I have installed the high frequency screwdriver antenna and it is working just as good as it was before my accident. I did the install on 09-09-12 but didn't get around to posting about it. So here we go!
I removed the hitch and antenna mount from the '06. Here it is on the ground. What you see is the hitch with my antenna mount bolted on and extending out the driver side. The coax and power for the antenna are run through the wire loom coiled on the ground.
The force of the accident combined with the length of the antenna was enough to bend the plate that the antenna bolts to.
After bolting the hitch up I used a couple of crescent wrenches to straighten it out.
I had also made several grounding straps for the '06. They will all transfer over however I only installed two of them on this day. They will be installed in each corner of the box and the rear corners of the cab then to the frame. The idea is that the body is rubber mounted, I want to electrically bond the body to the frame. The antenna is actually only half of the system. The other half of the antenna is the truck.
With the hitch mounted you can see two of the straps. One bonding my antenna mount to the frame and the other bonding the rear corner of the box to the frame. The passenger side box corner is done the same way.
I followed the factory harness on the driver side frame rail up under the drivers seat, ziptying the wire loom every foot or so. I brought the wiring in through a hole that seems like it was put there for this very reason.
Here is a pic under the drivers seat. I have ziptied the wires together to keep them somewhat organized. The turbo tuner is for the screwdriver antenna and allows my to have one button tuning. The alternative would be watching the SWR while holding a momentary switch until it drops to an acceptable level. Not ideal unless stopped on the side of the road.
Never mind the white audio cable and black power cable. They go to this speaker which hasn't found it's permanent home yet.
This speaker is very nice in the mobile environment. It has built in DSP that is used to eliminate some of the static from HF listening. It is very effective.
While working on this project I decided to update the battery clamps. I had these on my '06 and liked them. The ground was a premade cable. I cut the original so I could reuse the Hall sensor.
And the finished product...
I am missing pictures of the remote head, mic hanger and now my truck cap. It's too dark already so I'll try tomorrow. I did manage to take one artsy fartsy pic before I packed up for the day.
All images uploaded with ImageShack.us
It's starting to feel like my truck again!
9
Quick update.
Here is a picture with the truck cap installed.
A couple weeks back I rented a trailer to bring home patio pavers and a yard of sand. I made four trips to town and back. I was way overloaded with the pavers. I'm sure one trip was near 8000#. The Frontier did just fine.
The current newest update is a Magnaflow 12580 muffler. It gives a nice tone and isn't obscenely loud. It seems to be loudest in town around 2300-2600 rpm's. We'll see how it breaks in. Today once out of town I could still hear it cruising at 65 mph but it wasn't even an issue. If I would have had my stereo running Melvin Taylor surely would have drowned out the muffler.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Now as I said in another post a few minutes ago I need to go mow the lawn before I get in trouble.
Here is a picture with the truck cap installed.
A couple weeks back I rented a trailer to bring home patio pavers and a yard of sand. I made four trips to town and back. I was way overloaded with the pavers. I'm sure one trip was near 8000#. The Frontier did just fine.
The current newest update is a Magnaflow 12580 muffler. It gives a nice tone and isn't obscenely loud. It seems to be loudest in town around 2300-2600 rpm's. We'll see how it breaks in. Today once out of town I could still hear it cruising at 65 mph but it wasn't even an issue. If I would have had my stereo running Melvin Taylor surely would have drowned out the muffler.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Now as I said in another post a few minutes ago I need to go mow the lawn before I get in trouble.
3
Well it was a beautiful day out today. Slight breeze, overcast and a nice temperature. So I decided that it would be a good day to install my Firestone ride rite airbags.
First things first, if I'm gonna be outside for that long I'll need some tunes.
![Patio Property Deck Backyard Furniture]()
Now with that covered I set out in the install. Nothing special. It's all covered in this thread.
I installed the passenger side first because I knew it would be easier. The only trouble I had was the extra long carriage bolts. Once cut to length everything was cake. On to the drivers side. I knew I would have trouble because of the emissions stuff. Well I was wrong. It installed in a snap.
Well mostly. On the pass side I was able to configure the brackets to allow the bag to stand straight up and down. The drivers side has a bit of a lean. I'll leave it for now. Some day I would like to take the bottom bracket off and elongate the slot. That would fix the problem. Here are he pics passenger side first.
![Auto part Automotive tire Wheel Tire Motor vehicle]()
![Auto part Suspension part Automotive tire Vehicle Suspension]()
And I ran the line out the back for now. I mounted it on the tab that holds the trailer plug.
![Bumper Auto part Vehicle Automotive tire Automotive exterior]()
Onboard air will be in my future. Big air so I can get a train horn lol.
Anyway that was my Sunday afternoon. I'm waiting a bit to check air pressure to see if I have a leak. Then it's off to the nearby town for supper. That'll warm my truck up enough for an oil change yet today!
Sent from AutoGuide.com Free App
Edit: You'll also note the upper brackets aren't strong enough for much torque. I didn't feel safe with the amount of torque on them when the just started to bend. So I said F it I'll go as tight as I want.
First things first, if I'm gonna be outside for that long I'll need some tunes.
Now with that covered I set out in the install. Nothing special. It's all covered in this thread.
I installed the passenger side first because I knew it would be easier. The only trouble I had was the extra long carriage bolts. Once cut to length everything was cake. On to the drivers side. I knew I would have trouble because of the emissions stuff. Well I was wrong. It installed in a snap.
Well mostly. On the pass side I was able to configure the brackets to allow the bag to stand straight up and down. The drivers side has a bit of a lean. I'll leave it for now. Some day I would like to take the bottom bracket off and elongate the slot. That would fix the problem. Here are he pics passenger side first.
And I ran the line out the back for now. I mounted it on the tab that holds the trailer plug.
Onboard air will be in my future. Big air so I can get a train horn lol.
Anyway that was my Sunday afternoon. I'm waiting a bit to check air pressure to see if I have a leak. Then it's off to the nearby town for supper. That'll warm my truck up enough for an oil change yet today!
Sent from AutoGuide.com Free App
Edit: You'll also note the upper brackets aren't strong enough for much torque. I didn't feel safe with the amount of torque on them when the just started to bend. So I said F it I'll go as tight as I want.
1 - 17 of 17 Posts
